
One of Paris’s last horse meat butchers discusses the disappearance of his trade - Vigier
http://thenewinquiry.com/features/its-hip-to-eat-mare/
======
wmt
Finland still carries horse meat, but it's still a rarity, as nobody grows
horses for making meat, and it's just adult horses that were put down for some
other reason. The nice thing about it being so rare is that it's really cheap!
You might get a good horse steak from the meat counter half the price of the
best beef steaks, and it's much better than any beef steak I've ever eaten in
any country.

Reindeer steaks on the other hand, those are among the best steaks made out of
any animal I've eaten. There the price comes from the fact that reindeer herds
need hundreds if not thousands of square kilometres to roam freely. The good
thing is that Finland has 123 000 sqkms of wilderness (roughly the size of
Greece or Mississippi) officially dedicated for herding reindeer!

~~~
gambiting
"The nice thing about it being so rare is that it's really cheap!" Not to be
picky, but it has everything to do with there being no demand for that meat.
In Poland, we have a very small population of native Bison, which is under
extreme protection - but nevertheless, sometimes they have to be killed to
protect the herd or for some other reasons. When they are, the meat goes for
thousands of euros on the international market because it's such a rarity.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
We have bison farms here (Minnesota: north central US), I'm surprised if the
meat is that much in demand, someone in Poland hasn't tried farming them.

And yes, bison is tasty!

------
cr1895
If you ever find yourself in northern Italy, near Lake Como, I highly suggest
a trip to this little place called Alva Market. It's a food mecca; the place
Italians make a trip to on a Sunday just to eat good pizzoccheri (buckwheat
pasta with potatoes, greens, and cheese) or polenta taragna (buckwheat polenta
with a dangerous amount of taleggio cheese). Everything there is homemade or
coming from the nearby valleys; they raise their own livestock, make their own
cheese, cure their own salumi. My visit is easily one of the best food
experiences of my life and the highlght of everything I've done and eaten in
Italy.

What they're most known for is their bresaola. The've got a number of
different kinds; beef, goat, etc., but what I was most enamored of was the
horse bresaola. It was a slender cut of meat, allowing the rosemary, juniper,
and other spices to really come through in each slice. The horse itself was
quite sweet. Deep purpleish red. Truly incredible.

~~~
carlob
Another incredible horse meat delicacy in Italy is the "pesto di cavallo" from
Parma: imagine a tartare, but without all the yolk and capers bullshit and
made of horse rather than beef…

And in Italy is strictly forbidden to slaughter work-horses for human
consumption, though sometimes they crack down on an illegal butchery in
Sicily, in the north you should be fairly safe.

~~~
bobf
Parma is an incredible town for food, and the whole Emilia-Romagna region is
worth an extended visit. I spent 2 weeks exploring the area last summer and
loved it.

Within a 30 mile radius of Parma, you can sample some of the best fruits and
vegetables, stuffed pastas (ravioli), Parmesan cheese, balsamic vinegar, wine,
and sausages in the world -- almost unbelievably cheaply! If you're looking
for pesto di cavallo in particular, there's a great sandwich shop in Parma
called Pepèn that I'd suggest.

------
bambax
When I was a kid my mother did tartare de cheval (raw minced horse meat) every
saturday; there was an equine butcher shop right in front of our apartment
building in Paris.

Now it's been a while since I've had horse meat, but I remember it to be
pretty good.

What I don't know is why there should be a special butcher shop specifically
for horse meat? In a regular butcher shop you can buy many other animal
products than just beef (pork, rabbit, duck, chicken, lamb, etc.) so what's so
special about horse?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its so very very easy to substitute horse for beef and cut costs. I imagine
the separation is to try to eliminate even the appearance of that possibility.
Same reason you don't see "Yoshi Sushi House" and "Bob's Live Bait" under the
same roof.

------
greggman
You can get raw horse meat at many restsurants in Japan. It's fairly common.

In fact here's a search for places using the term 馬刺 [basashi] (馬=horse,
刺=from sashimi

Lots of places come up specializing in it

[http://s.tabelog.com/smartphone/restaurant_list/list/?utf8=%...](http://s.tabelog.com/smartphone/restaurant_list/list/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&sa=&sk=%E9%A6%AC%E5%88%BA&SrtT=trend&svd=20160208&svt=1900&svps=2&area_datatype=&area_id=&keyword_datatype=&keyword_id=&tid=&ifr=true)

~~~
contingencies
In China the most popular is donkey meat, or 驴肉 (lvrou, pronounced lew-row*).
For those who don't study characters, the left-hand part of 驴 is 马 ( horse),
which is the simplified form of the traditional character 馬 which is what the
Japanese are still using, and has a reconstructed proto Sino-Caucasian
root.[0] It's all over China but more popular perhaps in the north, Shandong
and northern Jiangsu in the east to Xinjiang in the west. Of course part of
this culinary capacity descends from earlier nomadic and steppe peoples. You
can also try Mongol horse milk alcohol, which is now available right across
China in bottled form.

I think it's fair to say that in the past, most people ate most meat, as long
as it was fresh and there were no local taboos. I haven't read any studies but
for bacterial reasons I suppose that raw consumption correlates with cold
climates.

0\. [http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-
bin/response.cgi?single=1&basen...](http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-
bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=%2fdata%2fsinocauc%2fsccet&text_number=+665&root=config)

~~~
cr1895
Speaking of which: [http://luckypeach.com/atlas/northern-courtyard-
restaurant/](http://luckypeach.com/atlas/northern-courtyard-restaurant/)

Chinese donkey meat sandwich. Looks pretty tasty.

------
davidw
It's still going strong in parts of Italy. South of Padova around Saonara
there are a bunch of restaurants that offer horse meat.

It's pretty good, although not one of the things I miss most about Italy in
terms of food.

~~~
13of40
I saw horse on a menu in Venice last summer, but didn't get a chance to try
it. I've had llama, though, and I heard they're similar.

~~~
davidw
I'd avoid eating anything in Venice unless you know a local.

They'll charge foreigners one price, people from the Veneto another, and
locals a third (cheaper) price. And that's if it's a decent place to eat,
rather than one of the many very tourist-oriented locales where anyone local
would never set foot.

~~~
13of40
Grocery stores are key. Especially the chain ones where everything has a
barcode. I agree the dining out situation there (and in Italy in general) was
a bit hostile/weird, but the rest of the vacation made up for it ten
fold...even if I never found out what horse tasted like.

~~~
cr1895
>I agree the dining out situation there (and in Italy in general) was a bit
hostile/weird

How do you mean? I've really found the opposite to be true. It's something I
love most about Italy; you can find good food prepared by people who are
passionate about their food for relatively cheap, and it's always unfussy.

~~~
13of40
In Rome, my wife and I tried to share a (normal sized) pizza on the patio of
an almost empty restaurant. We were told we weren't allowed to share and would
have to order two entrees if we wanted to stay. The place we ended up eating
lunch had a guy come over every 30 seconds and try to upsell us, and we were
completely ignored once it was clear we weren't going to buy anything else.
That was our first day, and it didn't get any better. Maybe we were just
unlucky, but it seemed like a theme.

~~~
cr1895
Sorry that you had such an unpleasant meal. That sounds like a typical big
city touristy place. I don't think you should expect that experience
elsewhere, especially outside of major cities.

I've spent more time in smaller towns in Italy, but even in Rome I was able to
find good non-touristy places. I've been to places like you describe and they
suck.

------
pbreit
Do we (USA) not eat horse and dog meat because we have special feelings for
those animals?

~~~
louprado
1) We domesticated horses and dogs to perform a service, not serve as food.
These animals were not bred to be flavorful.

2) If you are eating a service animal, that implies it was either too sick or
too old to be of service. An old or sick animal is unlikely to yield quality
meat.

3) Domestication is a powerful force. With great power comes great
responsibility. Warning, the next paragraph is dark.

One of the most abominable animal abuses comes from eating dogs. Dogs are bred
to be timid and sensitive. Consequently they are easily tormented. While it is
an uncommon practice, in rural Korea dogs are tormented prior to butchering
and then served in such a way to give the consumer an adrenaline buzz. These
dogs are also a special farm-breed that is more flavorful.

The above story was told to me by several hosts while I was in Korea.

~~~
codezero
1) Lots of people eat dog that is bred to be food:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat)

2) Based on the article, the horse butcher claims that all their meat was from
working horses, but that they were butchered before the "prime" of their life
(before 9 years) or after 14 years because the meat is more tender then. These
working horses are fed a good diet, so the meat is supposedly good tasting
compared to farmed animals who are fed specific food to get them fat & large
faster.

The contradictory way in which we see one living creature's value over another
is the reason I became a vegetarian. We bred dogs to be (insert reason that's
not food) we also bred cows to be (insert reason that is food), We are the
factor here, not the animals. Just because we bred animals to be a specific
way doesn't itself justify the industrial slaughter of one versus another.

With that said, my choice was: embrace eating dog, or stop eating meat. I
chose the latter, but I fully support anyone who chooses the former, but hope
they don't do so under the premise that one animal we control is somehow more
appropriate to kill and eat than another.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
> With that said, my choice was: embrace eating dog, or stop eating meat.

Why is that the choice? I'm not eating dog since there is no way I can ensure
that the dog was treated with some minimum level of care before being killed.
Probably a lot of the meat I eat was not killed in the most ideal conditions,
but I like to think that I am buying better raised animals these days.

> The contradictory way in which we see one living creature's value over
> another is the reason I became a vegetarian.

My idea is that if we look at the economic value of animals it becomes less
contradictory. Some animals taste good, can be put to work, give us enjoyment,
provide materials we can use, are cute, are just fascinating etc. We're
willing to bear the cost of keeping these around in some way. Others have
really little going for them, e.g. the mosquito.

------
gadders
Britain's Princess Anne recently suggested that eating horse being taken more
seriously in Britain [1]. There is a glut of horses in the UK, most of which
(unless a particular breed) are effectively worth nothing.

A lot of horses just get abandoned on spare fields in what is called "fly
grazing".

[1][http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/agriculture/meat/10449...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/agriculture/meat/10449803/Princess-
Anne-We-should-consider-eating-horse-meat.html)

------
julienchastang
I very much remember the Chevaline butcher shops as a child and even as an
adult 20 years ago. Times have changed (though I have never had any desire to
eat horse).

------
marcoperaza
I'm fascinated by how irrational people are about food. In California, it's a
_felony_ to slaughter a horse. And that isn't some old law that no one's
bothered to repeal, it came about through a ballot initiative in 1998. A few
other US states have bans, and the federal government allocates zero dollars
to the mandatory screening of any horse meat factories, so it's effectively
banned nationwide. I don't see how it's anyone else's business what I do with
an animal that belongs to me. Especially eating it, which is in the natural
order of things.

As mentioned in the interview, there was a massive scandal in Europe about
horse meat being substituted for beef in some products. No one would have
batted an eye if it was turkey being substituted for chicken, or lamb for
beef. Regulators would obviously have punished those responsible, but the
public wouldn't have cared if there was no safety issue. But horses, and
everyone loses their minds. How bizarre. It's the same thing with cats and
dogs. People have no problem with killing pigs, and they sure love their
bacon, but a lot of those same people would throw you in jail for eating cats
or dogs. I don't understand it. Yes, I get that cats and dogs are pets. Are
people really willing to ruin a human being's life, just to support the
fantasy that little Fluffy is a person?

~~~
peteretep

        > how irrational people are
    
        > the public wouldn't have cared if there was no safety
        > issue
    

But there _was_ a safety issue, so it wasn't irrational.

Also people do seem pretty clear on not eating animals which are also widely
kept as pets, with the exception perhaps of rabbit.

~~~
garrettgrimsley
Separating the two sentences that you did from the comment as a whole weakens
the argument that the poster was making. You don't address the point they made
about people having no qualms about eating pig meat while simultaneously
forbidding the consumption of cat and dog meat. I don't see how this is a
rational position.

>Also there seems to be a pretty clear dividing line between pets and food.

Maybe in the time and place in which you exist, but in others the distinction
is not the same. I have a pet dog, but I also enjoy bosintang. Is there a
rational basis for why I can't have bosintang in the US?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_slaughter_in_India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_slaughter_in_India)

~~~
peteretep

        >  You don't address the point they made about people
        > having no qualms about eating pig meat while
        > simultaneously forbidding the consumption of cat and
        > dog meat
    
        > > Also there seems to be a pretty clear dividing line
        > > between pets and food
    

There, you quoted it just after you called it an irrational position O_o

    
    
        > I have a pet dog, but I also enjoy bosintang. Is
        > there a rational basis for why I can't have bosintang
        > in the US?
    

I wonder how much research you've actually done here? Public opinion on dog
meat in Korea is shifting ... pretty much in lock-step with the increase of
keeping dogs as pets in Korea. Additionally, people don't keep meat breeds of
dog as pets.

I wonder if you'll use historic cannabalism as an argument that humans are
irrational for avoiding eating each other next?

~~~
garrettgrimsley
Your comment about there being a dividing line is only restating "pigs are
food, dogs and cats are pets" rather than offering a rationalization for why
this is the case. Sure, there is a dividing line, but _why_ is there a
dividing line? What makes the parakeet so different from the chicken, the cat
from the cow?

I'm familiar with the changing public opinion, but shifting public opinion
does not constitute a rational basis. I assume that you would not approve of
eating dogs if the practice was increasing in popularity. I also know that
people don't keep nureongi as pets, but I'm not sure why you brought it up.
Are suggesting that because they are specifically bred for slaughter this
makes them OK to eat?

From my perspective I see a group of people trying to force their views on
others. I'm intimately familiar with this story because I've seen it in many
different forms. For example, for years my father and many of my friends did
not have the right to marry in the US because of people just like you. Many
justifications for this bigotry were offered, but in the end it all boiled
down to "it makes me uncomfortable."

So, what's the rationale for why eating pigs is OK but eating cats and dogs is
off limits? Is it just personal discomfort? Help me understand.

~~~
vinceguidry
> I'm familiar with the changing public opinion, but shifting public opinion
> does not constitute a rational basis.

It often does. The Supreme Court will refuse to hear cases that it thinks
should be decided by a political process. Politics is the process by which
public opinion becomes law.

~~~
garrettgrimsley
Whether the belief is dying out or gaining acceptance is not a rational answer
to the question of _why_ people hold the belief. So again, is grouping pigs
and dogs into the respective groups of meal and pet anything other than an
arbitrary distinction?

~~~
vinceguidry
Oh, I wasn't intending to comment on the discussion you were having with the
GP, just to point out a small flaw in reasoning.

But since you asked, no, it does seem rather arbitrary. I'm not sure where you
wanted to go with that argument. I would not eat dog, but I happily eat pork.
I don't have a rational explanation for why, but neither do I care enough
about it to want to try to change it.

If I did, I would probably go in the direction of eating dog rather than to
stop eating meat entirely. It would not take much to push me in that
direction. A few weeks in Korea might be enough for me to get over it.

------
pi-rat
One of the best steaks I've ever had was horse meat. Highly underrated.

------
werdnapk
It's quite common in Quebec, Canada, but not the rest of the country.

------
nefitty
Obligatory:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_eating_meat](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_eating_meat)

------
lowpro
Is anyone familiar with horse meat in the US? I'd like to try some for a
reasonable price, I've never heard of it being sold here though.

~~~
cr1895
I found this article: [http://priceonomics.com/when-americans-ate-horse-
meat/](http://priceonomics.com/when-americans-ate-horse-meat/)

Much to my surprise, in 2012 the US was the top 3rd producer of horse meat
trailing China and Kazakhstan.

It's illegal in some states to raise horses for human consumption. No federal
funds are available to conduct necessary inspection of horse slaughterhouses,
so the three major horse "slaughterhouses" just export the live horses to
Canada or Mexico for slaughter before shipping the processed meet over to
Europe.

------
softiron
This guy should send his apprentices and customers to Mongolia. Here whatever
meat is cheapest reigns. All types are at multi-year lows because of a drought
and now extra cold winter called a dzud. Depending on the preparation, I like
horse meat a lot, and it gets a lot of play from people who prefer it to
typically prepared mutton or beef.

------
Tharkun
Horse meat is very common in Belgium. As steak, as sandwich topping, or as
part of many foods containing mince.

~~~
fs111
Even Bicky burgers contain horse meat...

------
ss6754
If you guys are ever in Kazakhstan I highly recommend trying horse meat. We
love us some delicious horsey:)

~~~
contingencies
_In great country of Kazakhstan, horse gallop to own final supper!_ ..
seriously though, see the proto Sino-Caucasian reconstructed phoneme I posted
above.

------
halviti
Iceland still uses horses for meat. The restaurant that provides the food at
my workplace usually incorporates it into the menu every other week or so.

Really horses are much more suited to our climate/landscape than other
animals, so it makes sense.

------
makeset
> I don't see how it's anyone else's business what I do with an animal that
> belongs to me.

This is why we have animal welfare laws, because there are people like you out
there.

~~~
marcoperaza
I think abusing animals is wrong. But human interests are always more
important than any animal interests. The government must exist solely to
protect human interests.

~~~
_nedR
>The government must exist solely to protect human interests.

I mostly agree with you about the meat consumption thing, but this?

Are you saying govt. shouldn't be in the business of wildlife conservation,
prevention of animal cruelty or abuse, or preservation of natural habitats
(beyond considering their impact on humanity) ?

~~~
marcoperaza
Those things only matter in terms of their value to humanity. There are most
probably an uncountable number of planets like Earth out there. The only thing
special about this one is that it is our home.

That doesn't mean that we should seek to disrupt the environment. On the
contrary, it is very precious to us for many reasons and should be protected.
A lot of those reasons are very utilitarian. But it's also because we
appreciate its beauty, its complexity, and our kinship with all life. But
those are still all things that we value.

~~~
asciimo
When the inhabitants of those planets ask why your interests are worth their
consideration, what will you say?

~~~
marcoperaza
How we deal with lower life forms on our own planet is totally unrelated to
how we would deal with intelligent life from another. Why would they be
related? If you're worried that aliens would look down on us as inferior life
forms and wipe us out, that's totally possible, though I'd say it's pretty
unlikely that any aliens ever come to visit us anyway. If they do, and they're
more powerful than us, our animal welfare laws are not going to do us any
good.

------
oilywater
Human is a label we gave to ourselves. Would you discriminate over homo
erectus, homo habilis - would you call them non-human animals, would it be
okay to use them for medical testing, maybe for food since their flesh doesn't
have Neu5Gc?

The only reason why your statements are this speciesist is that no living
ancestor of ours that was labeled a different species is alive today.

Otherwise you'd realize that species are a human construct, that there's no
better/worse. Yes, that does mean that human as a fully moral being (morality
comes from rationality) should try to minimize pain and suffering and
destruction of life.

Animal holocaust is happening for thousands of years. Even the holocaust
survivors have made comparisons and a lot of them have plant-based diets.

~~~
dang
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11057031](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11057031)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
oilywater
Downvotes were clear enough that it was off-topic.

------
tjholowaychuk
Good.

