Icelander here. Horse foal meat is some of the more expensive meat you can have at the finer restaurants in the country. At every butcher shops you can find foal meat, and most if not all supermarkets carry horse meat in some way (frozen, salted, smoked or as a sausage etc). The finer foal cuts are really some of the best meat I have ever tasted. Highly recommend.
Eating horsemeat in France
71–80 of 229 posts
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone in my family rides horses and eats horse meat; we don't see any problem with that -- at least we didn't. I haven't had horse for a long time, but when I was a child we had tartare de cheval every Saturday for lunch (and we went to ride horses the following day). In French riding horses is "monter à cheval" but many people (who usually don't ride) improperly say "faire du cheval". The appropriate answer when…
Similar quirk that irks me in English is 'horseback riding': it's just 'riding' - or 'riding on horseback', 'horse riding' - the whole thing's coming! 'horseback riding' to me sounds like it's supposed to be a humourous phrase along the lines of 'driving a desk' (a sort of blue-collar self-deprecation for having moved up from driving whatever vehicle) - like you're still in training and haven't been given a live hors…
Other ones include that nobody calls them stables, it's "the barn," there is a difference between a rider, an owner, horsewoman, horseman (horseman is a reverently reserved term of respect, and horsewoman is also a term of respect, both take a few decades of riding to earn, when a horsewoman is a horseman, it's like saying Maestro, it's deference). English and Western riding are a level of detail equivalent to red and white wine, they sort of describe more what you don't do more than what you in fact do. A trail ride is called going out for a hack, or going hacking, and a horse that is safe on a trail is called a good hack. Disciplines are very siloed and the equivalent difference would be someone interested in rally car racing vs. street racing, where they both like cars, but wouldn't have much to talk about other than some technical rivalry. It's almost to the level of the difference between SWE and devops, you're both "good at computers," but that's about all they have in common.
Wrt motorcycles, we also say motorcyclist or biker, not rider. Funny that the differences between motorcyclists and bikers are alot like that of English and Western riding, as they're motivated by different things.
Also, I've eaten a horse steak. I don't crave it, but it's neutral. Part of our human stewardship of nature involves killing, culling and eating other animals, just as bugs will devour my body once I go. The squeamishness around eating horse meat seems more like a fear of ones own mortality after being confronted with the body of a being one empathizes with. It's a free preference and choice, and I would only say that fear is expressed by people who would judge others for eating the meat, but not by someone who just doesn't eat it.
source: rides motorycle to the barn to go on a hack to unwind after hacking all day as a desk jockey and using hack writer skills to comment on hacker news.
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not the OP, but I'm in the US and.. it's complicated. I would say, in general, meats like lamb and, especially, veal have fallen out of favor due to the perceived poor conditions and youth of the animals. Rabbit isn't common in the US (it's not generally available in stores) but the "cuteness" factor plays a role here as well. This has changed since the 80's when lamb and veal were more popularly consumed. I'm guessi…
Lamb is completely common - you can buy it at Costco for crying out loud. Heck, I even had some at a FAANG cafeteria the other day. Lamb’s consumption is not unusual in the US, and is completely unrelated to the veal issue.
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not the OP, but I'm in the US and.. it's complicated. I would say, in general, meats like lamb and, especially, veal have fallen out of favor due to the perceived poor conditions and youth of the animals. Rabbit isn't common in the US (it's not generally available in stores) but the "cuteness" factor plays a role here as well. This has changed since the 80's when lamb and veal were more popularly consumed. I'm guessi…
Lamb is completely common - you can buy it at Costco for crying out loud. Heck, I even had some at a FAANG cafeteria the other day. Lamb’s consumption is not unusual in the US, and is completely unrelated to the veal issue.
Additionally, duck and geese can be bought at my local whole foods and often sell out.
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#75It's the first time I see a picture of edible meat and feel repulsed by it. Interesting. Bit of background about me: I really like horses. They're friends to me. I see why people eat them, but that just sounds wrong, just writing it. I... I guess I understand why vegetarians don't like meat, now.
I’m not here to judge anyone for eating meat, despite being vegetarian, but I agree with the other comments here, if you eat cows or pigs or sheep or chickens then why not cockatoos or horses or dogs (or feral cats, which are consumed in some parts of Australia)? I don’t eat any of these creatures, but nevertheless, I just don’t get why certain animals seem to be culturally off limits for those who do eat meat. Is it…
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#76We eat horsemeat in Italy as well, though not very commonly. I did a few times, eh, nothing to write home about. Also donkey meat ragu once, that was pretty good. AFAIK rabbit meat is not viewed very well across the pond either, like in the US. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#77Long ago I tried horse meat salami in France. It wasn’t terrible, but I prefer pork, or rather that’s what I was/am used to. Americans are surprised to hear when I talk about eating rabbit (again in France when I was a kid.) Those cute furry animals are delicious :)
Rabbit is eaten in the states, but it's kind of like venison: it's just not something you'll usually find in any store or restaurant, unless those places are specifically going out of their way to cater to either hunters or an "old world European" aesthetic. I can regularly get rabbit at either cheap redneck holes in the sticks or expensive German restaurants in the city. People outside of the cities, and ethnic encl…
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#78When I lived in NL, I took a trip to Maastricht which is a beautiful place right in the South and tried a popular local dish - Zoervleis[0] which is traditionally horse meat. It was delicious. It always amuses me that when I tell this story, it's often met with disgust - even by meat-eaters! "But, how could you eat horse! They're so nice!". Yeah... you eat beef, have you ever met a cow up close? They're also lovely c…
One can get horse meat in Japan too. (I think they mostly import it from France these days.) I had a nice cheval carpaccio there once, at the insistence of my Japanese hosts. It tasted good, but I have no desire to eat it again. I don't intend to ever try dog. From what I've heard the meat of carnivores tastes unpleasant, but that might be folklore.
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
One can get horse meat in Japan too. (I think they mostly import it from France these days.) I had a nice cheval carpaccio there once, at the insistence of my Japanese hosts. It tasted good, but I have no desire to eat it again. I don't intend to ever try dog. From what I've heard the meat of carnivores tastes unpleasant, but that might be folklore.
> I've heard the meat of carnivores tastes unpleasant People eating salmons and other predatory fish would disagree. Horse meat is really good, and dogs probably taste like chicken anyway ... But no meat beats well-prepared tofu & seitan ;p
Re: Eating horsemeat in France
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It’s also quite expensive which can make sense because scarcity, but not make sense since the demand must be fairly low. If demand is highly inelastic - as would be expected for something like culinary preferences - then price actually has to increase when demand is low: if you can sell to 3 people at 20$ or 5 people at 10$, you're losing money by decreasing your price.
> If demand is highly inelastic - as would be expected for something like culinary preferences Demand curves, regardless of elasticity, are always downward sloping: Higher prices lead to fewer units demanded. Your statement implies control over prices: Firms with market power do not operate along the inelastic portion of a demand curve. This is a logical implication of profit maximization. Before one can understand t…