Horse Meat - Opinions

Chong

I am just back from Belgium and had a fillet steak of Horse whilst there. I was bit apprehensive before eating it but turns out it was absolutley beautiful. It was so tender and lean, and tastes quite like Beef but a bit more subtle. Cutting through it was like cutting through butter.

Anyways whats ppl reckon of Horse ?

antoniosicily

estern sicily is full of restaurants or places where you can eat horse meat, and that's the same in other part of italy. It's a great meat, very tender and sweety! I love it, I don't reckon that it's the best meat available (I still prefer veal), but it's certainly one of the best.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to get horse meat in Ireland, probably killing horses is prohibited by some sort of religion here.

bonkey

Horse is tasty. Foal is even tastier.

Minder

antoniosicily wrote: »

Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to get horse meat in Ireland, probably killing horses is prohibited by some sort of religion here.

Italy = catholic
Ireland = catholic

Ponster

antoniosicily wrote: »

Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to get horse meat in Ireland, probably killing horses is prohibited by some sort of religion here.

Probably no market for it I guess.

I've had it once or twice in France. Very lean and quite tasty but not something I'd eat on a regular basis. Over the past 10 years it's becoming slightly more difficult to find in supermarkets.

Alun

I had it a few times in the Netherlands. They even have special horse butchers there. I thought it was OK but not worth going out of my way to buy it.

shrapnel222

Ponster wrote: »

Probably no market for it I guess.

I've had it once or twice in France. Very lean and quite tasty but not something I'd eat on a regular basis. Over the past 10 years it's becoming slightly more difficult to find in supermarkets.

still plenty of horse butchers around though. in paris in any event

Ponster

shrapnel222 wrote: »

still plenty of horse butchers around though. in paris in any event

Not as many as before. I used to pass 2 on my way home from work 5 years ago but both of those have closed since. Horse butchers don't sell beef without a special permit so it limits the amount of business they can generate. That combined with a large anti-horse meat publicity campaign means that there are notable less around this year.

shrapnel222

Ponster wrote: »

Not as many as before. I used to pass 2 on my way home from work 5 years ago but both of those have closed since. Horse butchers don't sell beef without a special permit so it limits the amount of business they can generate. That combined with a large anti-horse meat publicity campaign means that there are notable less around this year.

fair enough. it's been a while since i've been back. I remember seeing years a go a documentary about how incredibly diverse the horse population in France was when it came to horse breeds, and this was mainly due to the fact that horse meat was a very common dish and sold very well. Whenever i hear about these protests, it always makes me wonder that nobody protesting seems to realise that if they ever got their wish to close down all horse butchers and ban the meat, at a guess a lot more than 50% of the equine population in France would disappear in no time at all.

Ponster

While I don't have a cite (yet!) I'm pretty sure that more than 50% of the horse meat consumed in France originates in the USA (saw it in an episode of Nova).


Edit : found one... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/15/france.lifeandhealth

Around 80% of the horse meat in France is imported, with more than a third from the US. The French horse meat industry will now look more to Latin America and Canada as suppliers. Europe's horse meat market is substantial: France consumes 26,000 tonnes a year, but Italy, where horse sausage and cured meat is popular, eats three times that amount.

A LOT of people that I know who enjoy horse meat do so with the knowledge that your average horse leads a much better life than your average pig or chicken.

shrapnel222

Ponster wrote: »

While I don't have a cite (yet!) I'm pretty sure that more than 50% of the horse meat consumed in France originates in the USA (saw it in an episode of Nova).


Edit : found one... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/15/france.lifeandhealth



A LOT of people that I know who enjoy horse meat do so with the knowledge that your average horse leads a much better life than your average pig or chicken.

thanks for that. just having a quick look on the net and it looks like france export about 80% of the horses reared for meat to italy and spain mainly, and that although they import vast amounts of horse meat, more than 35% of that is sold on.

Ponster

Yeah. It's a tricky world the horse meat market it seems

I don't think I'm clever enough to discover why France can't provide it's own meat and sell on the surplus or import the deficit.

bonkey

As an aside...I'd like to add that donkey is also fantastically tasty.

CJhaughey

I have probably munched an Ass or two in my time as well.......