The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #78631 Message #1416997
Posted By: JennyO
21-Feb-05 - 09:13 PM
Thread Name: BS: Horse meat; horsemeat as food: Yes or No
Subject: RE: BS: Horse meat; horsemeat as food: Yes or No
Last time I visited France, they had "Cheval" done up in prepacks in the meat section of the supermarkets, along with the steaks and roasts and garlic snails. I didn't try it, but it didn't look too bad. I might ask my brother, who lives there, what it's like.
There doesn't seem to be any point in taking a high moral ground about eating one type of animal over another. The differences are really just cultural. I feel a connection with our animal relatives, but that does not make me feel that I have to be a vegetarian. Eating and being eaten is all part of the cycle of life.
Here in Oz, you can get Roo at some butchers. It can be lovely if it is prepared right - mmm, thinly sliced roo steaks in a sweet plum sauce!
Having said all that, I couldn't eat an individual animal with which I have formed a relationship, so Onyx, my cat is quite safe!
Douglas Adams suggested a solution to all this in "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", with this character:
Dish of the Day
The quadruped Dish of the Day is an Ameglian Major Cow, a species of dairy animal specifically bred to not only have the desire to be eaten, but to be capable of saying so quite clearly and distinctly. This quite vocal and emphatic desire to be consumed by Milliways' restaurant customers greatly distresses Arthur Dent, and the Dish is nonplussed by a queasy Arthur's subsequent order of a green salad, since he knows "many vegetables that are very clear" on the point of not wanting to be eaten — which was part of the reason for the creation of the Ameglian Major Cow in the first place. After Zaphod orders four rare steaks, the Dish announces that he is nipping off to the kitchen to shoot himself, comforting Arthur only very slightly by stating that "I'll be very humane."