Horsing Around

The revelation that traces of horse DNA has been detected in Tesco economy beef burgers raises several questions - how did met of any kind find itself into the sawdust, being the most pertinent.  Obviously, the real issue here is one of trades description - if they're made of horse meat, then they should be called horse burgers, not beef burgers.  But there's no doubt that a lot of the media coverage played on this strange aversion we have in the UK to the very idea of eating horse meat.  I've always assumed that this derives from our sentimentalised view of horses, the way racehorses are lionised and ponies treated like pets by young girls from well-off families.  Not to mention our obsession with the 'romance' of cavalry regiments and their mounts.  Hell, being described as 'horsey' is considered a compliment in many social circles, particularly royalty. Horses are our sacred animals, I suppose, in much the same way as cows are sacred to Hindus.  Personally, I have no such qualms - I'll happily eat both horses and cows, I really don't see why one should be different to the other.  And it's no good trying to tell me that horses are more intelligent than, say, cattle or sheep - we're quite happy to eat pigs which are far more intelligent than horses.

Not only would I be happy to eat horse meat in theory, I have actually eaten it.  Many moons ago when I was in France I had a steak that turned out to be horse.  Which I enjoyed very much.  I can't remember much about the taste, other than that I thought at the time that it didn't taste that different to a beef steak.  Of course, the anti-horse meat brigade will undoubtedly trot out the tired old lines about if it is fine to treat horse meat like any other meat, then why not extend that to, say, dogs or cats.  Well, in some parts of the world they do.  The only practical objection I have to consuming cats or dogs is that, as they are pretty muscular creatures, you probably wouldn't be able to get much decent meat from them - it would be too stringy, in the main.  The same sort of thing applies to rats - too small, not enough meat on them.  Although they might make a decent economy burger, I suppose.  The bottom line in this whole business is that the presence of horse meat in supermarket economy burgers would represent a distinct improvement in quality and nutrition, bearing in mind that the meat they usually contain is basically cow's anus.