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| One of these fillets used to be a horse and one used to be a cow. |
This is an article I wrote a few weeks ago for Vale Life magazine. I didn't imagine then that it would still be so topical...
You
must forgive me if I’m not my usual self but I have just come out
of the Seven Stages of Early Jan.
The first stage is ‘shock and denial’ (OMG did I really eat that much
over Christmas? There’s no way I
ate that much over Christmas!). Stage
two is ‘pain and guilt’ (My stomach hurts bad, why did I eat three tins of
Quality Street?). Third stage is
‘anger and bargaining’ (Christmas pudding makes me mad! Please please please
give me some more of that sweet, sweet Christmas pudding). Next comes ‘depression’ (I can’t
believe I’ve got to wait 348 days until I eat turkey again). The fifth stage is ‘reflection’ (Boy we
had us some good times at Christmas didn’t we? Remember that slice of brie?). Next is ‘acceptance’ (So I ate a lot this Christmas. What are you gonna do?). And lastly in the Seven Stages of Early
Jan we come to ‘hope’ (Hey is that an Easter Egg?).
Well,
in this post Christmas, post New Year, post turkey and all the trimmings, post
staying up all night drinking kind of world we find that THE hot food topic of
2013 so far is… horses. In case
you missed it, certain burgers in certain supermarkets contained certain traces
of certain horse DNA. Not wanting
to go into the “ifs” and the “whats” and the “d’you mind if I don’ts” of feeding
things to people they don’t know they’re eating, I thought I would devote the
first column of the year to the hidden hippophagist in all
of us carnivores. Why is it that we are
happy to eat some mammals but not some others? Cows, pigs, goats, sheep, deer and rabbits are all eaten
happily by millions of people.
However, mention that a haunch of horse is on the menu for Sunday lunch
and you’ll find yourself as popular as, well as popular as some horse DNA in a
supermarket beefburger.
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| Equine or bovine. So, do you feel lucky punk..? Well..? Do you..? |
In
talking to people about eating horse I heard the same story from virtually
everyone. Most people seem to
think that they have (a) eaten horse (b) in France and (c) without knowing that
they were eating horse. Given
these unusual set of facts I did what any self respecting food writer would
do. I bought a horse steak on the
internet and cooked it up for lunch.
The horsemeat in question was lean and dark, a little like venison. When fried up for a few minutes it was
quite tasty with a firm texture and a distinctive ‘gamey’ flavour. I also cooked a fillet steak for
comparison and I am happy to report that despite looking very similar the beef
won hands down for flavour and texture.
Would I eat horse again?
Yes, I don’t see why not.
Would I choose it on a menu over beef? I don’t think I would.
Buckinghamshire horses can rest easy, they are simply not delicious
enough for this hungry gent.
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