We’ve all heard the stereotypes about certain cultures eating certain animals that most of us find particularly gruesome. Perhaps these animals are pets in our lives, ‘man’s best friend’, but should we deny their tastiness and cultural significance? The mainstream North American diet is as boring as chalk – or at least I think so. And so a few years ago, I decided I would eat anything. Living in Toronto, this statement is rather safe to make.
Two months ago, I ate horse. It was delicious. I dined upon this stallion of an animal at the Black Hoof – a cafe specializing in charcuterie, non-mainstream meats, and offal. It tasted quite good, sweeter than beef or pork, and apparently much leaner too. However, it did not arrive in steak form, but rather made into sausages, and chopped up raw with hot sauce. If I was not told it was horse, I probably would have thought, ‘wow what delicious beef’.
I’ll admit, being acculturated to mainstream North American food, I did find eating horse meat a little strange, though really, no stranger than eating rabbit. Horse meat is actually not as stigmatized in many parts of Europe as you would have think. Though a taboo to eat in English-speaking countries, it is not so in most parts of France and Italy. And let’s be honest, British food is not often revered for being flavourful. While France and Italy are honoured for their impeccable culinary skills, I wonder if monkey meat (brain) would ever be appreciated as a sophisticated delicacy in North America – maybe if the French and Italians started eating it too.
In Canada, horse meat is most readily available in Quebec, and can supposedly be purchased from high-end butchers in Toronto and Vancouver. And so what one may consider as grotesque, others may consider a gastronomical delight, a food that the sophisticated tongue can only appreciate, but I simply think it is delicious, and doesn’t taste like chicken. But no disrespect to the chicken: an animal died so we could eat, and even though factory-farmed chicken tastes like cardboard mixed with white paste, we must appreciate its life and death just the same.
I will be returning to the Black Hoof in Toronto next week with a friend, and hopefully she will appreciate this awesome flavour and not think of images of Black Beauty and ‘My Little Pony’. In the next few weeks, I will be tracking down some horse meat from a butcher, and hopefully getting my hands on a copy of the out-of-print Carlson’s Horsemeat Cook Book. Check back for my attempt at COOKING horse meat.
Which animals would you eat? Which ones would you never eat?
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I don’t have an issue with horse meat as a food item, but the problem is that a lot of the horse meat making it to tables could actually *have* been someone’s pony – or a racehorse full of steroids.
Check out the piece Dana McCauley wrote about horse meat a while back. (http://www.homemakers.com/blog/danasblog/tag/canadian-horsemeat/) Then check the CBC website to see if they still have the footage of horses being slaughtered in an inappropriate facility.
I’d love to try the stuff – but not until there are regulations in place so that we can all find out where it’s come from.
Thanks for your comment Sheryl, that is a very intriguing article. Though I would have to suggest that even the mainstream meats we eat today (chicken, pork, beef) that we have regulations for are still mistreated in factory farms and are fed who-knows what (see Food Inc, Fast Food Nation, etc). And so, horses may have been someone’s pony once isn’t the issue, nor is a lack of regulation, but rather selfish capitalism that facilitates these short-cuts (efficiency and effectiveness). And so we are all culprits of capitalism, myself too. But alas very few of us demand to know where our food comes, even those chickens. So when I order horse again next week, I certainly will ask if the chefs know where the meat has come from. Do many of you inquire about where your food comes from?
I’m pretty open to eating almost anything. I’ve sampled dog, snake, donkey, bugs, yak and much. I have yet to try horse…..