Why Say Nay To Perfectly Good Food?

I do find it odd that people get weird about what they eat.  There was a huge furore in the UK a year or so ago when Gordon “F**king” Ramsay announced that he would be putting horsemeat on his menu. Why?  Homo sapiens have been eating horse since they climbed down from the trees.  In Yorkshire they only stopped selling it in butchers around 1947. The French are still big on it, raising some 15,000 horses for meat production annually.  Which is nothing compared with the Italians who sit at number four on the horse meat consumption chart, beaten in the straight by Kazakhstan, Argentina, Mexico and …China romping first across the line.

According to the French horsemeat promotion mob, La Viande Chevaline, a nice chunk of Dobbin is king among terrestrial proteins in leanness, protein levels and iron content. While unlike other domesticated livestock horses don’t share any parasites that like humans. And the anthropomorphism argument is illogical.  We don’t eat horse because we think of My Friend Flicka or Black Beauty?  If we all thought like that punters wouldn’t eat certain takeaway food because it reminds them of Sponge Bob!

I have to admit that I’m writing this in advance – on the eve of being in Paris where I fully intend to cook and eat horse meat.  Last time I was there I encountered two horse butchers and a charcuterie that sold donkey salami and the stuff looked fabulous. This time I’ll have access to a kitchen – and I can dream of consuming the last nag that failed me in the Melbourne cup.  Mind you I’m coming home via Tokyo and they have basashi…horsemeat ice cream.  Watch this space…