The owners of a New York City restaurant are just a little bit shocked that horse-meat is not a big hit with their customers. M. Wells Dinette has pulled horse meat off the menu of the cafe they just opened at an art museum. (You know, where you'd think the diners would be a little more open-minded!)
Horse meat is off the menu at the Dinette, and it is not likely to return. We took it off because it upset so many people, which truly surprised us. That is not the effect we look for in our food, so away it goes.
Really? You were surprised? Heck, I could've told you as much myself. If there's anything Americans hate -- besides being told what to do and seeing the flag burn -- it's eating horsies.
Maybe it's all those little girls pinning pictures of ponies to their bedroom walls, maybe it's the legacy of Mr. Ed the talking horse, but people just get emotional about those animals. Not only do we not think they sound delicious, we think it's practically immoral to eat a horse.
Personally, I'd be okay with trying horse-meat maybe once. But it still sort of gives me the creeps. I kind of feel like it would almost be like eating human -- which is totally illogical and probably something I should talk over with my therapist because horses are not people.
Will we ever change? Apparently they eat horse-meat in Canada. (BLAME CANADA!) And at a big food festival in Brooklyn M. Wells sold 5,000 foie gras and horse-meat bologna sandwiches. Then again, that particular food festival was kind of just one giant dare. But in general, I think it'll take an apocalypse before Americans find their appetite for horse-meat.
Would you ever try horse-meat?
Image via Adrian Parnham/Flickr
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Comments 48
*shrugs* My stepmom ate horse meat growing up in the Netherlands. Not sure that I would try it, as it is not something that I grew up with and I don't even like meat with bones in it (boneless, skinless chicken breasts all the way, lol), but I don't find it all that unusual. If I was at a restaurant with someone and they ordered it, I wouldn't be bothered.
I would never eat horse meat. There is no reason anyone should eat horse meat. It's completely unnecessary and cruel. Do you think they are slaughtered without any fear or pain? Imagine what they go through. If people choose to eat meat, there's no reason whatsoever it should be horse. Let them live in peace, please.
Actually Canada doesn't eat horse meat, we just process it. The US shut down it's horse processing facilities a few years back and so they started shipping horses to Mexico and up to Canada to be processed. The meat the largely goes out to Europe which is far less...sentimental about horses and where horse meat is a common meat.
As far as comparisons go, one of the largest problems with horse meat is that horses cannot be effectively stunned. The captive bolt guns used on cows, sheep and pigs doesn't work because horses are too twitchy about anything coming at their heads. They rear back and it often takes multiple attempts to even stun the horse at all, let alone a good clean 'hit'. So many are still very much alert when they're killed. Horses are very jumpy and difficult to handle compared to other eaten livestock.
I personally would not eat it and am against the slaughter. Horses have given (and continue to) too much to America to end them like that.
I didn't know that it was more dificult to humanely kill/slaughter a horse than other livestock that are eaten regularly in the U.S. I hadn't even given it a thought. That is actually a reasonable arguement against eating horse meat. Unlike other posters who seem to think horses are special, but cows aren't.
Meat is meat. There's no difference in eating a pig or cow than a horse or even a dog. A cow has as much will to live as a horse, and are just as friendly and sweet, but nobody gives them a thought when they're grilled and served up. Pigs can be even more intelligent than dogs and are wonderful, loving animals, yet nobody makes a fuss when the bacon's frying.
But a pretty pony? Oh, no! That's wrong!