Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Eating horsemeat in France

lamelonne.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 229 posts

Re: Eating horsemeat in France

#121

Post by FactolSarin »

12ian34 wrote: post #31

When 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…

I would argue horses are different than dogs. Dogs a are bred to attach to and love humans. Horses.... tolerate us. They'll fall in line if you demonstrate you're the leader, but they don't bond like dogs do.

Re: Eating horsemeat in France

#122

Post by kodah »

foobiekr wrote: post #102
kodah wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Animals that are both higher intelligence in our perception and closer to us day to day will fall into the category of disgust, imo. For instance, I've had dogs my whole life. They're pretty deep creatures with emotions, intelligence, and personalities all their own. If you tell me that you ate what I have a personal connection to, what I consider my family - It's hard not to look at you in disgust. Similar to the di…

Cows have much larger brains than dogs and are quite intelligent, and so are pigs. The "dogs are special" argument is a familiarity thing or perhaps a statement that dogs evolved to more effectively manipulate human emotions.

As I said, it probably has to do more with our aggregate personal connection to animals in a given culture, because that will influence how we perceive their intelligence.

If you've read the studies I did, they're not very good. For instance, the test that asserted a pig is smarter than a dog was where they were tasked with moving a joystick designed for a monkey that controlled a cursor that they wanted moved into a blue region on a screen. I'll let you make your own judgements about how sound the testing with respect to the assertion is. My dog certainly has eyes that can be tuned to manipulate me, but she also has a sizeable vocabulary, a lot of tonal intuition, and this little heat seeker in her nose that quite literally syncs her heart rate with mine. There's a good amount of theory that says this adds up to empathy.

Re: Eating horsemeat in France

#123

Post by pigtailgirl »

MrDresden wrote: post #60

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.

-- most intense lamb I've ever tried was in Iceland - had lamb many many times in Scotland and it was gamey - but the lamb in Iceland was next level - in fact it was so intense that I tried it at another restaurant the next day just to see if it was the place I'd eaten - nope - just as strong - I wondered why - if you happened to know --

Re: Eating horsemeat in France

#124

Post by Retric »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #103
seanwilson wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 creatures! I see this as double-standards - similar to how most meat-eaters also seem so disgusted by the idea of eating dogs in certain parts of Asia. Doesn't this more indicate that many peo…

Really deep down, i.e. at the level of hunger and what looks tasty to your body, eating animals is very right. They are a fantastic source of nutrition. However, we also like to domesticate animals, as companions and helpers. Hence the conflict. We eat way too much meat, but strict vegetarianism and especially veganism does not scale to the whole population of the planet - animals are simply too efficient at converti…

Most of what we eat are grasses. Rice, wheat, corn, etc.

Grazing cattle on marginal land is extremely labor intensive. So most cattle calories come from potential or actual farmland. Either as highly productive pasture or crops optimized to feed cattle. Especially as grazing clause significant damage to marginal land resulting in desertification or other issues if not carefully managed.

Re: Eating horsemeat in France

#125

Post by wsc981 »

rapnie wrote: post #97
12ian34 wrote: post #31

When 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…

Also NL. I feel that the opinions have shifted last couple of decades. Anectdotal maybe, when I was younger eating horse meat wasn't something one thought about much. My mother used to go into town especially for buying horse steak, because "they are way better than cow beef steak". Recently I asked her if she still buys it. "Horse meat? No!". She forgot about how we always ate it.

When I was young I lived in the province Drenthe. We visited our grandparents every weekend. My grandfather would often have horse meat for dinner.

At the time I quite enjoyed it. I was young and didn’t think much of it.

Once I got a bit older my father mentioned once that he thought horse meat smelled like pee. At that point I stopped eating horse meat. However I am not even sure if there was some truth in what my father said at the time … seems unlikely.

Re: Eating horsemeat in France

#126

Post by ectopod »

treeman79 wrote: post #53
12ian34 wrote: post #31

When 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…

My small child. How do you spell chicken? Not the kind you eat, the bird. Oh my. We had some tears that day.

Similarly, my young niece had surmised that chickens produce nuggets in much the same way they produce eggs.

Re: Eating horsemeat in France

#127

Post by rand0mx1 »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #103
seanwilson wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 creatures! I see this as double-standards - similar to how most meat-eaters also seem so disgusted by the idea of eating dogs in certain parts of Asia. Doesn't this more indicate that many peo…

Really deep down, i.e. at the level of hunger and what looks tasty to your body, eating animals is very right. They are a fantastic source of nutrition. However, we also like to domesticate animals, as companions and helpers. Hence the conflict. We eat way too much meat, but strict vegetarianism and especially veganism does not scale to the whole population of the planet - animals are simply too efficient at converti…

I think 100% would be apt

Re: Eating horsemeat in France

#128

Post by rapnie »

wsc981 wrote: post #125
rapnie wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also NL. I feel that the opinions have shifted last couple of decades. Anectdotal maybe, when I was younger eating horse meat wasn't something one thought about much. My mother used to go into town especially for buying horse steak, because "they are way better than cow beef steak". Recently I asked her if she still buys it. "Horse meat? No!". She forgot about how we always ate it.

When I was young I lived in the province Drenthe. We visited our grandparents every weekend. My grandfather would often have horse meat for dinner. At the time I quite enjoyed it. I was young and didn’t think much of it. Once I got a bit older my father mentioned once that he thought horse meat smelled like pee. At that point I stopped eating horse meat. However I am not even sure if there was some truth in what my f…

He likely got you with that joke :D

Re: Eating horsemeat in France

#129

Post by OJFord »

oergiR wrote: post #67
OJFord wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In English everywhere except the US, it’s “horse riding”; “horseback riding” is US English. Definitely humorous: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5wSw3IWRJa0

I know it originates in the US (where I'm not from, perhaps hence it grating) but like so many things it does seem to be catching.

Re: Eating horsemeat in France

#130

Post by turbonaut »

ectopod wrote: post #126
treeman79 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My small child. How do you spell chicken? Not the kind you eat, the bird. Oh my. We had some tears that day.

Similarly, my young niece had surmised that chickens produce nuggets in much the same way they produce eggs.

In a way they do…
Post reply on HN