Bullet to the head, of course. I would never eat meat that was drugged, as many horses end up being, sadly.
Same insecure types act out when they encounter someone who does not drink alcohol.
That strikes me as a perfect parallel.
Since Soylent Green has been mentioned more than once, let’s go with the comedy route: Eating Raoul.
^ This.
I have experienced this in all facets of life. From the political spectrum to the religious spectrum to the food spectrum to the size/shape/weight spectrum to the sexual preference spectrum to the supposed racial differences spectrum to sports team mania.
"I’m better than you because I < fill in the blank >. Neener! Neener! "
On the other side of that coin, I would have a hard time considering someone a friend who takes effort and pains to go out of their way just to intentionally f-ck with my food, politics, religion, diet, or family background. I let you live your own damn life. FO and let me live mine.
That’s probably it. Men do this in any context-- they’ll do it in a restaurant where they don’t know you, or a gathering where they are related to the host at all. They will especially target DH more than me, until he stands up, and he’s 6’2, 240lbs.
The only time it ever bothers women is when they are the host, and have cooked something you won’t eat. This is why, when I am being invited to a large gathering, I don’t mention dietary preferences, but if I think that I’m one of only 2 or 3 guests, I’ll try to mention them somehow, because I don’t want someone to go to a lot of trouble especially for me, and then have me not able to eat it.
Instead of trying to talk you into eating what they’ve already made that you don’t eat, though, women will usually run around trying to figure out what they can make that you can eat. And I’ve learned that if it doesn’t take them away from their other guests much, to let them. It’s what I’d want if I had a guest who couldn’t eat anything I was serving. For example, if someone has made mashed potatoes with drippings, and then realizes I can’t eat them, and wants to throw a baking potato in the microwave for me, I won’t argue. I may not eat much of it, but I’ll eat a little, even if I don’t really want it.
Certain butcher shops, especially either high-end butcher shops or places that do halal meat. That’s my understanding anyway. I’ve literally never cooked it myself 
. My first couple experiences was as a kid with my father (and he’s a pretty decent cook) and that was quite awhile ago. More recently it has been either at someone’s house or once in a Pakistani restaurant, which was the best version because curry cures all but still not really to my taste.
Speaking of cultural differences, I remember visiting my sister-in-law’s house and my German cousins were there. Sister-in-law complained privately to me that she had cooked a big meal and those German folks didn’t eat hardly anything.
I was sympathetic, but I knew that our cousins weren’t used to huge American portion sizes, and were still full from lunchtime.
That’s why when I cook venison I ADD fat/oil to the dish. Venison is extremely lean meat and it really doesn’t taste good without some added fat. Which sounds horrible to many modern folks but you just add enough to bring it up to the fat content of lean beef or a pork roast. By itself it’s too dry.
I get it with the food allergies: “Oh, these tomatoes won’t bother you - they’re organic!” (Yes, yes they will) or "these tomatoes won’t bother you - I cooked them thoroughly! (Yes, yes they will). Or try to sneak something into my food to prove it’s all in my head and not real. That one I’d say is 50/50 men and women.
It’s a weird power-play that it would never occur to me to engage in, yet there’s a bunch of people out there who do this. And then there is this thread.
I’ve seen it at hallal meat sellers in the Chicago area. Lamb seems much, much more popular.
It could happen in the US. I understand that North America is an outlier, but a lot of people here react to eating horse the way a devout Hindu might react to eating a cow, even if the revulsion is not coming out of a religious conviction.
Here it’s not so much that eating is the illegality, it’s slaughtering a horse for the purpose of eating it that is banned. An odd distinction, but there you have it. It’s a very strong cultural taboo here.
Realistically, if someone in a rural area slaughtered and ate a horse on their own property no one would likely know. But if it was found out, well, high likelihood the person would become a social pariah unless it was an extreme survival situation, the sort where the alternative to eating horse would be to go cannibal.
Try it. It’s delicious.
I’ve eaten horse any number of times. In France. And in Japan, raw, prepared as sashimi.
It’s fine. It’s nothing worth seeking out, or even going out of your way for.
But it certainly isn’t something that would make me upset.
Same with goat, which is easily available, either in a butcher shop or a restaurant, in the Caribbean or Indian neighborhoods of New York City, where I live.
And the same is true for game meats, some of which really are worth going out of one’s way for. Also true for seal, which is definitely not worth going out of one’s way for. I had no emotional reaction to eating seal, no feeling of transgression. I just don’t like it.
Dog? I don’t know. I’ve never eaten dog. I’ve never even been anywhere were I could get dog meat, at least not easily.
I’ve never had a dog as a pet, I’ve never had an emotional relationship with a dog, but somehow I just can’t consider them as food. They’re just not in that category for me.
I wouldn’t eat one, and I’d be seriously pissed off if someone tricked me into eating dog meat. Of course, I’d be seriously pissed off if someone thought tricking me into eating anything was funny.
Wow. That’s quite a thread.
Yeah, I sympathize. I don’t eat meat, and I don’t drink-- I have no issues with alcohol, I just don’t like it, same as with meat. I particularly hate beer, and I’m ALWAYS getting people asking me “Have you tried beer X?” I don’t know. But I’ll bet it tastes like beer. And I HATE BEER.
I also don’t eat refined sugar (I even have to be careful about things like eating a lot of fruit on an empty stomach) because I have reactive hypoglycemia, but for some reason, no one blows me shit about that. I don’t know if it’s more common, or everyone is familiar with diabetes, so they know sugar can be really bad for some people.
Huh. That surprises me.I’ve found portion sizes small compared to what I’m used to in Japan, but not in Germany.
(I’ve also been to international events in Japan where they ran out of food. The Americans and Brits and Germans and Dutch ate a LOT more per person than Janese would, and there just wasn’t enough food to go around. The same event has also been held in Germany, and it was not a problem.)
There are a bizarre number of people who think this is a fun prank. “You’re really eating venison/moose/buffalo! And you never noticed!” And there’s no polite way to say back “I just assumed you were a shitty cook and that’s why the ______ tasted so weird. But my parents raised me better than to do anything other than smile and say something nice when I’m a guest in someone’s home and they offer me food.”
I do never eat at their home again. And it’s always been game - never horse or dog.
I can’t imagine trying surprise meat on purpose - I’m a picky eater and I’d like to know what the meal is supposed to be before eating it.
Best venison steak I ever made was cooked very gently sous vide with a healthy amount of just-cracked black peppercorns and a giant pat of butter in the bag. Then when it came out, I threw it onto a red-hot cast iron griddle for like ten seconds each side. The black pepper ameliorated the gamey odor and the butter added richness. Good stuff.
It used to be that you could get kosher venison in the US, so it must have been farm-raised, because I can’t imagine capturing and herding wild deer into an abattoir. At some point, though it became illegal to slaughter deer in an abattoir in the US, and only wild deer that are shot during season are legal to serve as food. That means, I guess, that if you hit one with your car, you can’t take it home.
Anyway, you can’t get kosher venison in the US anymore. You can probably get it in other countries, though, particularly in Israel.
Ahh, then you misspoke? You said the horse was “put down” as in euthanized. A bullet to the head is not an accepted means of euthanasia. The horse was slaughtered, not “put down”.
Now we’re into the nitty gritty of the English language, no? I only learned it in school, you know.
A bullet to the head is among the accepted, legal means of animal euthanasia where I live, so add a cultural difference there, too.
Says who?
Dick Frances wrote a book titled “bolt” that led me to believe a bolt to the back of the skull (fired from a modified gun) was the usual way to put down race horses.
A bullet to the back of the head is fast and painless. I know a guy who puts down his beloved hunting dogs with a bullet to the back of the skull, rather than taking them to the vet, when their time has come. Then he cries and buries them.
Many years ago a kosher friend said that the kosher venison was farmed in new Zealand. I don’t believe it’s legal to sell wild game meat in the US (it’s legal to charge to butcher it, and to eat it yourself, and to give it away. But not to sell the meat.)
So all (legal) restaurant venison and supermarket venison is farmed and slaughtered with usda oversight. If there is no longer kosher venison here, i would guess either the place that did it stopped, or the laws about importing venison changed.