I picked up a pre-sliced pack of salami at the local store on my way to school. I didn’t read the label closely, I just saw “Uherak” which is generally a very good Hungarian type of salami.
I get to school, I do my stuff all morning, and for a lunch snack I grab my bag of meaty delight and a diet cola.
And the salami tastes…different. It almost has a gamey flavor, with the slightly rubbery texture of day-old cold cuts left open in the refrigerator.
I look at the label. “Konsky Uherak Trvanl.” Oh, joy. It’s horse salami.
Now the problem with horse meat I have is that I don’t envision the ‘best’ horses get eaten. With cattle, they raise certain strains to be eaten or milked or ???, but with horses it just seems like only the old, sick and unwanted ones go to the glue/salami factory. I wonder if properly raised, corn-fed horse-meat actually tastes better?
When I was in my mid-20’s, I lived in Switzerland for about a year - doing one of those “I’m young, let’s travel the world” type things. For 5 months, I worked illegally as a dishwasher in a restaurant in Fribourg (up north).
The daily special there was almost always “steak du cheval e pommes frittes” (probably got the spelling wrong there). Which, basically, was “horse steak and fries”.
Fit, well fed horses end up at slaughter just as frequently. The old sick horses too often aren’t even worth the haul to the auction and end up just starving, freezing or other such neglectful deaths. Especially so now with all the PMU mares and foals dumped on the market. So no, you just as likely ate a show horse as an old nag.
When I first moved to Berlin, I was dirt poor and found a neat butcher shop that sold bouletten (little mini-meatloafs, sort of like a hamburger) for cheap. Little bit of mustard and wow…lunch!
After a few months, I told one of my German friends about these great bouletten and dragged him along with me to get one. He looked at the butcher shop sign and said, “Ross!” I didn’t know that was the name for a horse butcher, I thought the owner’s name was Ross.
Gotta admit, it was odd when I realized I was eating Seabiscuit…and I sort of stopped going there very often. But I have had worse things in my mouth, and I will leave it at that.
I’ve eaten horse sashimi in Kyushu, where it’s a local delicacy. Once you get past that “noble beast” {the horse, not me} hangup, it’s fine. Mind you, I’ve eaten bugs in the jungle, and an axolotl on a bet, so what do I know?
*"This by no means must continue, brother, but filled with the strength of Christ, you must by all visible and fitting means prohibit it most thoroughly; it is certainly an impure act and also accursed.” *
Pope St. Gregory III, letter to Boniface, 732 A.D.
Well, horse meat sure is free range meat. I like the taste, too.
But when you expect the taste of beef, the taste is different and the taste buds sound some kind of alarm: “Warning: meat tastes odd! Might have gone bad! Possible health hazard!!” so you’re kind of subconsiously revulsed. That happened to me anyway, the first time I had horsemeat. The first time I ate deer or wild boar, same thing.
Having owned a horse, I could never eat horse meat. It’s not just the oogey factor. I’ve seen all the supplements and medications horses get. I really don’t want to consume that!
I’m not sure what typed of horses go to slaughter, but at least some of them are well cared for horses that have gone permanently lame and are no longer of use. They’ve probably been given some treatment for lameness prior to the ultimate diagnosis of permanent unsoundness. My horse has been treated for lameness (she recovered). It involved a lot of medications I can’t remember. I do remember having to rub DMSO on her shoulder–and I’d really rather not eat that. Right now, she’s on Legend and Adequan to prevent degenerative joint desease. They may or may not be dangerous to humans. I just know they haven’t been approved for human use.
Aside form all the lameness treatment, my mare was on Depo Provera for a few years to prevent her raging, nasty heats. I know humans take Depo (heck, I have), but I’m not sure it’s something you want to consume unaware in your steak. Many mares are on Regumate for the same reason (to prevent heat cycles). My mare wasn’t because Regumate is a pain in the ass to deal with. Women who are still menstruating are not supposed to touch it since it can be absorbed through the skin and disrupt your own menstrual cycle. That can be problematic since you have to feed it to the horse every day.
There are many other medications and supplements my horse gets that I’d prefer not to consume–and there are a lot of horses that get more and stronger stuff than mine does.
Horse meat may or may not contain chemicals that are detrimental to humans. I haven’t heard of any health issues caused by eating horses, and I’m not trying to say that horse meat is dangerous. I’m just making the point that horses aren’t exactly organic or chemical-free meat . So I would prefer to pass on eating Flicka (well, to be honest, it does have an oogey factor for me as well).
