Argggh! The Foodie’s Night Mare…the Galloping Gourmet Burger!
The doe-eyed equine substitue-husband that the righteous have no objection to having boiled up to glue their dinning chair together has turned up on their dinner plate.
They are aghast! Knackered horses have their uses in death – the righteous were happy to queue to see the money Damian Hirst made out of tastefully disposing of a horse carcass; they queue up in the local zoo to see the wonderful animals that are being saved from extinction – and fed on large chunks of horse meat; they lovingly fondle that first edition of Oscar Wilde, bound together with glue made from horses hooves – but in their Tesco Value Added burger it is beyond the pale!
I can’t understand how it could have happened – after all the French pay dearly for horse meat, as do the Dutch; why would an Irish burger maker waste good horse-meat on the sort of people who buy Tesco’s Value Added Burgers? Is anybody enquiring what the other 71% was – or do they prefer not to know? It’s not just Tesco’s either, there’s My Lidl Pony…
The poor loves can’t even retreat into vegetarianism with a clear conscience; it seems they are responsible for a famine in Bolivia. The muncher with a conscience has driven the world price of Quinoa so high that Bolivian farmers are selling all their crop to the European market and the Andean peasants are starving as a consequence; they can’t compete with the prices that Jeremy and Henrietta’s Mum can afford to pay rather than risk them eating horse meat.
It’s so hard to be righteous these days – there are hurdles at every turn…
Ms Raccoon apologises for her unaccustomed silence over the past few days, she’s got the bluddy flu…back to normal soon!
Ms Raccoon lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France, renowned for its fine wines and gourmet food, so she frequently finds better things to do than sit in front of a computer all morning. She is liable to take off traveling at a moment's notice. Consequently this blog only gets updated these days when it is raining - and it doesn't rain very often round here...
{ 68 comments }
“Is anybody enquiring what the other 71% was – or do they prefer not to know?”
Yes Anna that is the really crucial question… As I understand things “cheval” is lean and tasty, and is already in many preserved meats of the salami genre, and which we have been merrily eating for years.
The other 71% I suspect is comprised of toe, bollock, brain and skin (hide) well the softer bits anyway… Just like the chicken nuggits that are making our kids into over-proteinised seven footers.
Horse meat is beautiful – very lean as you say. I am bemused, since when I was in England I saw many restaurants advertising Kangaroo meat, Ostriche meat, Reindeer meat, all because they were lean and low colesterol, as is horse meat. Why are the British so appalled at the notion of eating Dobbin?
“Why are the British so appalled at the notion of eating Dobbin?”
It’s a kind of taboo that makes no rational sense, like eating dog or rat.
Not eating dog & cat does make rational sense beyond the pet aspect – both are carnivores. We prefer not to eat them (fish excepted) or, as I tell vegetarians, ‘my food eats your food’…
It is not recommended to eat the meat from a carnivore. Carnivores share many nasty pathogens with humans. If the meat is eaten, it must be very thoroughly cooked. Organ meats (offal) from carnivores can be very dangerous to consume, typically liver contain very high levels of vitamin A that is toxic to humans.
The meat from omnivores is safer than carnivores, but again pathogens are shared with humans so the meat must be cooked, but not to the same degree as the meat from carnivores.
The meat from herbivores is the safest of all. And if the animal was healthy it is reasonably safe to eat raw.
Not eating some types of animals does have some sense to it.
Alan, you will find that many of these religious and cultural reasons for not eating particular animals do have some root in practicality. As I stated below, certain meats ‘go off’ quick in hot places and I believe that the Celts had a cultural prohibition to eating horse which may also have reflected how valued horses were for transport and power, after all you wouldn’t want to eat your equivilent of a tractor, and have nothing to plough your field with would you? This Celtic cultural prohibition on horse may be why horsemeat is not acceptable in the UK but it is elsewhere.
I totally agree, Anna. Nothing inedible about horse meat although the French will eat anything
What people don’t realise is that 100% beef means they use 100% of the beef. That’s all the bits. Including ground up bit of bone and God knows what else. It’s like stainless steel. Doesn’t mean it won’t stain, just that it stains less.
I’d rather have a nice horse meat steak any day…
And the Chinese who have a reputation for eating everything with legs, except the table.
The remaining 71 % “I suspect is comprised of toe, bollock, brain and skin (hide) well the softer bits anyway” or as friend of mine always says lips, ears, and arse****s.
More like Red Rum in the Tum
” My Lidl Pony” – inspired !
Those who adore the taste of rare meat should not pretend to be squeamish, offended or morally sensitive….and equine flesh is low in fats and beneficially cell-repairing. Anyone care for a Somali Pirate sausage?
Is a Somali Pirate sausage anything like a Salami sausage… Just thinner?
Cooked in an authentic skint, the sausage is donkey-free and traditionally eaten with fingers.
*skin*
Would they be Birdseye perhaps?
I’m not having anything to do with a Somali Pirate’s ‘sausage’, or a donkey’s for that matter…
Was it a gay police horse?
I’ve just checked the burgers in my fridge….’and they’re off’.
And coming round the fridge seal now…
Well, ‘my Lidle pony’, scoops the pool Ms Racoon !
A couple of years ago, when every horse owner in the UK had to stump up£40 odd quid for an utterly pointless ‘horse passport’, the justification was that it was to ensure that filthy Eropeans who like a spot of Dobin , weren’t at any risk, so surely there is no problem now ?
OT, but serious. What has happened to biased-bbc ? My linki shows that the site subscription wasn’t renewed on 16/12. Anyone any ideas / contact ?
It moved for some reason to http://biasedbbc.org
Naughty Anna!
One of my local pubs serves horse. Along with bison, zebra, crocodile and springbok.
This all smells like the RSPCA have been out-manouevred by the NSPCC child-scare scandals, and want to bring their own funding back into the publics mind.
(someone once told that the only way to cure my cynicism was surgery)
Brilliant theory – wouldn’t put it past them!
I’m shocked, shocked, to find out that meat has been going into burgers.
Not so fast, mon brave.
They only reported finding “horse DNA” and “pig DNA” in the various sanples – what makes you assume it was ‘meat’ ? And how did they get a policeman’s DNA ?
I’m surprised they didn’t find any of Jimmy Savile’s DNA. Maybe he spared the horses.
Well, that’s more than Olly Neville would….!
It’s funny how people react after the fact.
Wow that burger is delicious, ah sir it’s made from rats testicles, eurrrgghhh that is disgusting never eating that again it’s horrible.
For the info of ‘Backwoodsman’ Biased BBC has moved to :-
http://www.bbcbias.co.uk
Thanks John, must have missed the Parish announcement !
No problem. Had horse steaks in Spain back in the 60s, and very good they were too. And donkey salami. which was excellent.
Next?
This situation needs stabilising, it’s so cavalier of Tesco.
To mix metaphors, the Chickens are coming home to Roost.
After years of supermarkets’ buyers constantly screwing suppliers to reduce costs & so reduce their prices, the meat-products supplies had to buy from the cheapest sources.
So no surprise then, that ‘added ingredients’ bulked-out the main product.
Oh dear – just as I was feeling a level of smugness that can only be achieved by a vegetarian whose bookshelf includes a well-thumbed copy of ‘Fast Food Nation’, you have to go and spoil it all with quinoa.
I’ve been eating the stuff for years; I wondered why it was suddenly impossible to get hold of. It’s no consolation to know that I must now fight my way through packs of righteous yummy mummies to get at it – and now I’m consumed with guilt over the Bolivian farmers too.
Actually, starving Bolivian peasants so that little Aramintabella can have a superfood is, I suppose, not so far removed from child garment workers painfully sewing sequins onto the little darling’s pyjamas – ‘Just £9 from the high street; cheap as chips but such fun!’ I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that we appear to have have a business climate in which food producers will import meat without asking the right questions as long as the price fits.
The neigh-sayers are everywhere today.
Oh, and a lot of so-called beef is actually Zebu – the meat’s too tough for a steak, but it’s cheap and when hidden in burgers (with Dobbin) it tastes fine.
Anyone who worked in the potential combat zone that was West Germany in the 60′s-90′s would have eaten horse meat as a staple diet of the British Army, and RAF Germany. Horse meat sausages were weekly fare, as was delicacies such as ‘currywurst and chips’ ‘frikkadela and chips’ and other more exotic German cuisine – ‘blutwurst… and chips’ for example. Good honest food – if you like chips.
Mind you, some of the local practices left a lot to be desired, such as having to use a toilet with a ‘shelf’, on to which your ‘deposit’ landed (and upon which, it was rumoured, your good German would dissect his stool, to check for signs of tape worms) the ordure sometimes gently steaming in the dawn’s early light was not so pleasant, and stank to high heaven especially when, as soldiers will, some witty soul, possessed of a scatalogical sense of humour and, having delivered a large ‘dump’ would leave it proudly on display for the next inhabitant of the toilet to witness… Harmless fun, perhaps, but not something one liked to be greeted with in a confined space first thing in the morning.
Back to the subject. Man is a carnivore. Man has acquired dominion over the earth. We may not agree with some of the choices of diet in some parts of the world, being, as a nation, soft buggers on the whole, when it comes to pets, but no one can deny a particular culture’s right to indulge in their particular culinary vice, except perhaps when the food source is of international and world importance from a conservation point of view.
Where’s my knife and fork?
There’s a rather funny bit in BlackAdder where le frenchy has doubts over his lunch with the line ‘ The food is filthy! This huge sausage is very suspicious. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a horse’s willy’.
Ah Frikkadellan, curry wurst and Kase wurst. I practically lived on them back in the 80s.
Käse, NOT Kase. “Kase” does not exist.
On a more serious note and on reflection, I would not eat horse meat. Having just had a brief re-introduction to horses and riding, I find our equine friends kindly, gentle (in the main), intelligent and sensitive. Not qualities I would associate with every human being I come across, I am afraid. Added to that there are one or two of my species with whom I have been acquainted to whom I would gladly “Do a Hannibal Lecter” if given the licence and opportunity.
I thus find myself in the unusual position of objecting to the consumption of horses (or dogs or cats) but being quiet lenient on certain limited forms of cannibalism.
Gildas… Would it help persuade you if I pointed out that the horse ‘on the menu’ would, in fact be dead…? A small, but nevertheless important consideration perhaps.
Delicious too!!
Erm….no. Horses should not be consumed except in times of seige.
‘…Horses should not consumed except in times of seige’.
“Born in the wrong century?”… Man, were you ever!
When I lived in Germany, one of the nicest things that you could consume locally was a Balkan Platter, a speciality at a local restaurant. We called it (perhaps ironically, in view of the subsequent murderous conflict there) the Balkan ‘Splatter’. Goodness knows what meat it was comprised of, but it was multitudinous, vast in size and delicious. It probably contained horse, cow pig, calf, cat, dog, whatever. The final treat was a free shot of some local liqueur, served alight.
Happy Days, and, best of all, the East Germans and Russians didn’t invade and we all got to live.
I think they’re flogging a dead horse, myself
As someone who is Jewish and does keep Kosher quite strictly at home (only Kosher meat, separating meat and dairy foods etc etc) On occasion, whilst out and about and eating in non-kosher places, I have by mistake eaten something that I should not have done (prawns, ham laden quiche). I have not run to my lawyer, or whined (or in this case whinnied)or demanded compensation (unlike some unscrupulous people may do over this problem). I’ve just shrugged my shoulders, gone ‘whoops! sorry G-d’, and looked at the ingredients more closely in the future. As someone with a religiously restricted diet, it is MY responsibility to adhere to MY religious rules and not the job of anyone else. Besides that, I’m sure that G-d would forgive me making a mistake like that, after all it’s not as if I’ve deliberately gone to my local hog roast is it? None of what is alleged to have been found in this meat is of a type of contamination that is likely to do anyone any physical harm. If you have a religiously restricted diet, then you only have yourself to blame if you consume meat from a non religiously certified source.
On the subject of religious reasons for not eating pig and shellfish, such foods are well known for spoiling hence the old English rhyme ‘if you not want your pork to mar, kill not your pig without the ‘R’ ‘, ie don’t slaughter a pig in the hottest months of the year. Some Reform and Liberal Jews have made individual decisions not to avoid pig because they take the view that the ancient Israelites didn’t have fridges whereas we in the modern world do have such devices.
An odd footnote to your mention of pork and shellfish; I have always been unable to eat either due to an inherited lipase deficiency shared with my grandmother, father and uncle (we shared the same rare blood group too). It also prevents me eating other meats in any quantity, but it is pork that I find impossible to keep down.
A few years ago, some genealogical research by my uncle turned up the surprising fact that my paternal grandmother – who was 77 when I was born – was almost certainly Jewish; since she had severed all links with her family to marry my grandfather and never spoke of them, nobody knew. It’s an odd and culturally confusing legacy (at least for dinner party hosts), but it does make me wonder about natural selection; most likely those with such a genetic deficiency might well have died out during times of hardship in communities reliant on pork or seafood.
There is another view on the religious prohibitions against pork, rather than the standard ‘public’ version that it ‘goes off quickly in hot climates’. Pork is said to taste very similar to human flesh and the basis of the prohibition was to prevent unscrupulous dealers from adulterating their ‘pork’ products with human flesh, gathered however. But that’s a more tricky PR message – so let’s stick to the hot weather yarn.
In the context if this story and the apparent, yet irrational, horror with which some people consider the notion of eating horse-flesh, perhaps we should review our more commonly-held distaste for consuming human flesh. If you were plane-wrecked on an Andes mountainside without food, could you ? Would you ? Some did and thus survived. So what’s the problem, and why do we let such vast amounts of free protein go to waste by just burying or cremating it ?
That’s an interesting theory mudplugger. It is possible that some of the biblical prohibitions against pork may well be connected with the Israelite distaste for human sacrifice that some ancient polytheistic tribes in the Levant practiced. There is a biblical passage ‘the binding of Issac’, which some have said is an allegory of one particular tribe, which eventually became the Israelites abandoning human sacrifice (for those who don’t know Abraham was commanded by G-d to sacrifice his biological son, but just before Abraham plunged the knife into Issac an angel appeared and stayed Abraham’s hand and G-d miraculously provided a Ram to sacrifice instead.).
I can’t comment on your assertion that pork and human taste similar though.
I hasten to add that I have not (yet) sampled human fillet – the similarity of flavour with pork is reported by many of those who have. In Papua New Guinea, a region with a history of not wasting precious protein, one local dialect phrase for ‘man’ translates as ‘long pig’ – coincidence ?
Hungry now!
One of my most vivid college memories from 40 years ago is of a Jewish fellow-undergraduate gingerly tasting a pie in Hall, in order to determine whether or not it contained pork. How could he possibly have known?
There might be a way (see my comment above) if the the physical inability to eat pork is widespread – and, after all, how would you know, in a group that never touches it on principle? I have thrown up on several occasions after unwittingly eating small pieces of pork or bacon in food.
Mmm I thought I read in a book sometime, that the reason pig was considered unclean was that it had the wrong feet – for a nomad tribe, the pig couldn’t walk well enough to kjeep up, and also couldn’t get by on the sparse semi-arid vegetation, perferring to root around in moist forests. The pigs were the farmers animal, the goat was the nomads. Thus, pig was the food of choice of your mortal enemy.
“The farmers and the cowboys should be friends…..”
” why would an Irish burger maker waste good horse-meat on the sort of people who buy Tesco’s Value Added Burgers”
because I don’t suppose it was ‘good’ horse meat at all, but all the nasty gristly bits, mechanically-recovered from Dobbin.
Whoa there. The Guardian has the list of tested products. Neither of the UK produced samples were contaminated with pig or horse meat. All the positive tests were from Irish packing houses – indeed only one sample from Ireland was totally free of alien DNA. The EU is supposed to regulate the food producers. What else has been added that’s not supposed to be there?
I’ve had a good laugh with the jokes today, but remember that consumers don’t eat cheap food expecting to be poisoned by unscrupulous people down the food chain.
http://www.fsai.ie/uploadedFiles/News_Centre/Burger_results_2013_01.pdf
And then we scroll down the page to find that Iceland got two lots from the UK. I’ll eat my words – seeing as they are tainted with equine shit.
At least , there no reports of people going down with the ‘ trots ‘ .
What about the ‘Galloping Gourmet’ ?
In Britain stick to British lamb & mutton: much of our island is only good for growing grass: the only use for this is to graze it and the best animal for this is a sheep bred to our climate & able to survive our winters. The lambs are born in the winter [now] and grow in the spring and summer and are slaughtered before the winter comes. This is the most humane way of turning our vegetation + sunlight into something we wish to eat as we have at the present time and it keeps our countryside looking neat and tidy.
And what is wrong with hoirse meat? My freezer is, along with pig, FULL of the stuff.
From steaks, through burgers, to Würst.
Horse NOT Hoirse. “Hoirse” does not exist.
One point to you Melv!
Neither do spell checkers here, obviously.
If the supermarkets were really smart, they’d use Zebra-meat rather than horse – that way they’d get a free bar-code on every portion.
Flesh that I have eaten:-
beef (including milk-fed new-born of the species), sheep (including limbs from infant Ovis aries), pig (both Sus scrofa domesticus and Sus scrofa) including adult, young and unweaned, impala (Aepyceros melampus), kudu, both Greater (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) and Lesser (Tragelaphus imberbis), waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus), lechwe (Kobus leche), buffalo (Syncerus caffer) which is as tough as old boots, crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus), leguaan (Varanus niloticus), ostrich (Struthio camelus), bushbuck (Tragelaphus sylvaticus), duiker (Sylvicapra grimmia), eland (Taurotragus oryx), elephant (Loxodonta africana), zebra – don’t bother (Equus quagga), python (Python sebae), vervet monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus), baboon (Papio ursinus), dog (Canis lupus familiaris), cat (Felis silvestris catus), just about every avian species big enough to give a mouthful and anything from the sea which has come my way (including sea cucumbers!)
Why should the inclusion of flesh from Equus ferus caballus cause me any problems?
It’s all FOOD!
XX Why should the inclusion of flesh from Equus ferus caballus cause me any problems? XX
Its causing you to talk bollox.
Who the fuck CARES what some ancient roman called them, in a dead language?
SHERGAR ‘Cold Case’ File re-opened.
Can you help? Please check the bottom of your freezers for those seriously out of date packs of burgers.
With DNA testing we can finally solve the mystery of his disappearance. Might even track down Lord Lucan.
Comments on this entry are closed.
{ 1 trackback }