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| Horsemeat burger anyone? |
I grew up in Tunisia, where my parents were posted until 1973. That’s
where I went to school and started university.
When I was at the French Lycée in La Marsa, opposite the train
station there was a sandwich shop we used to often pass by after school. It
served horsemeat, as did many other such outlets.
The best were the salami sandwiches that were my top pick and I can
still remember as delicious.
When I told my parents, they were a bit shocked. My dad
investigated further on his weekly market run. He reported horsemeat was widely
available at butchers’. He got some steaks to cook for our dogs. But when our
housekeeper and gardener saw them, they were surprised that it wasn’t for our
own consumption. So their share of horsemeat steaks was added to dad’s weekly
shopping list to their great delight.
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| Horsemeat salami |
I went down memory lane after reading about horsemeat being found at
Tesco and other supermarket burgers in England and the Irish Republic. Tesco
placed full-page ads in UK newspapers apologizing.
Irish food inspectors had found
almost 30% horsemeat in one brand sold by Tesco. Iceland, Lidl and Aldi and
Dunnes also found smaller amounts in sold beef burgers.
Officials said the adulterated
products posed no risk to human health but
were removed from shop shelves.
A total of 27 burger products were
analyzed, with 10 of them containing traces of horse DNA and 23 containing pig
DNA. In addition, 31 beef meal products, including cottage pie, beef curry pie
and lasagna, were analyzed, of which 21 tested positive for pig DNA.
All those years ago,
the world was a different and more isolated planet. We were less exposed to news,
opinion and political correctness.
Rather than Google
everything, we relied on common sense. I have long since moved away from meat
and certainly chicken that I only eat if I have to.
More of the uproar is due
to the lack of labeling of the products. It is not illegal to sell horsemeat in
the UK but it is illegal to sell ingredients that are not listed on the label
of the product you are buying.
The sale of horsemeat in supermarkets
and butchers is minimal, and most of the horsemeat consumed in the UK is
imported from Europe, predominantly the South of France, where it is more
widely available.
Historically, horsemeat is major meat in only a few countries, notably in Central
Asia. But it forms a significant part of culinary traditions elsewhere -- in Europe,
South America and Asia.
The top eight countries consume about
4.7 million horses a year. In 2005, the eight principal horsemeat-producing
countries turned out over 700,000 tons. In the same year, the biggest
horsemeat-consuming countries
were China (421,000 tons), Mexico, Russia, Italy, and Kazakhstan (54,000 tons).
In 2010, Mexico produced 140,000 tons, China 126,000 tons and Kazakhstan
114,000 tons.
I don’t really remember the taste, but
horsemeat is said to be slightly sweet, tender, low in fat, and high in
protein. However, because of the role horses have played as companions and as
workers, and concerns about the ethics of the horse slaughter process, it is a
taboo food in some cultures.
In many parts of Europe, the
consumption of horsemeat continued throughout the Middle Ages until modern
times, despite a Papal ban in 732.
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| Horsemeat butcher in Languedoc, France (Wikipedia) |
France dates its taste for horsemeat to
the Revolution. With the fall of the aristocracy, its auxiliaries had to find
new means of subsistence. It was during the Napoleonic campaigns, when the
surgeon-in-chief of Napoleon's Grand Army, Baron Dominique-Jean Larrey, advised
the starving troops to eat the meat of horses.
In 1866, the French government
legalized the consumption of horsemeat and the first horsemeat butcher's shop opened
in eastern Paris, providing quality meat at lower prices.
Despite the general taboo, horse and
donkey meat was eaten in Britain, especially in Yorkshire, until the 1930s, and
surged in popularity in the United States in times of post-war food shortage.
The killing of horses for human
consumption is widely opposed in countries such as U.S. and Britain, where
horses are generally considered to be companion and sporting animals only. But Europe
takes exception. In Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxemburg and other states, it is
commonly found, sold in most supermarkets and many butcher shops.
Maybe the French introduced horsemeat in
Tunisia when it was under French protectorate from 1886 to 1956…
Have you had horsemeat? Where and in
what form?
