10 ms·

One of Paris’s last horse meat butchers discusses the disappearance of his trade

103 points by Vigier 11y ago

werdnapk 11y ago
It's quite common in Quebec, Canada, but not the rest of the country.
julienchastang 11y ago
I very much remember the Chevaline butcher shops as a child and even as an adult 20 years ago. Times have changed (though I have never had any desire to eat horse).
wildmusings 11y ago
I'm fascinated by how irrational people are about food. In California, it's a felony to slaughter a horse. And that isn't some old law that no one's bothered to repeal, it came about through a ballot initiative in 1998. A few other US states have bans, and the federal government allocates zero dollars to the mandatory screening of any horse meat factories, so it's effectively banned nationwide. I don't see how it's anyone else's business what I do with an animal that belongs to me. Especially eating it, which is in the natural order of things. As mentioned in the interview, there was a massive scandal in Europe about horse meat being substituted for beef in some products. No one would have batted an eye if it was turkey being substituted for chicken, or lamb for beef. Regulators would obviously have punished those responsible, but the public wouldn't have cared if there was no safety issue. But horses, and everyone loses their minds. How bizarre. It's the same thing with cats and dogs. People have no problem with killing pigs, and they sure love their bacon, but a lot of those same people would throw you in jail for eating cats or dogs. I don't understand it. Yes, I get that cats and dogs are pets. Are people really willing to ruin a human being's life, just to support the fantasy that little Fluffy is a person?
- peteretep 11y ago
  > how irrational people are > the public wouldn't have cared if there was no safety > issue But there was a safety issue, so it wasn't irrational. Also people do seem pretty clear on not eating animals which are also widely kept as pets, with the exception perhaps of rabbit.
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    From the research I've done, the main safety concern was Bute given to horses, and it seems like it's actually very rare for horsemeat to test positive for it and that when present, the amounts are not significant. Am I missing something? >Also people do seem pretty clear on not eating animals which are also widely kept as pets, with the exception perhaps of rabbit. I understand that apprehension. I'd probably have the same apprehension if a plate of dog meat was put in front of me, at least at first. I've had pet dogs and I cared a lot about them. But to throw someone else in jail over it? That ruins families, childhoods, and lives. Just so we can live with the fantasy that Fluffy is a person.
  - garrettgrimsley 11y ago
    Separating the two sentences that you did from the comment as a whole weakens the argument that the poster was making. You don't address the point they made about people having no qualms about eating pig meat while simultaneously forbidding the consumption of cat and dog meat. I don't see how this is a rational position. >Also there seems to be a pretty clear dividing line between pets and food. Maybe in the time and place in which you exist, but in others the distinction is not the same. I have a pet dog, but I also enjoy bosintang. Is there a rational basis for why I can't have bosintang in the US? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_slaughter_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_slaughter_in_India
    - peteretep 11y ago
      > You don't address the point they made about people > having no qualms about eating pig meat while > simultaneously forbidding the consumption of cat and > dog meat > > Also there seems to be a pretty clear dividing line > > between pets and food There, you quoted it just after you called it an irrational position O_o > I have a pet dog, but I also enjoy bosintang. Is > there a rational basis for why I can't have bosintang > in the US? I wonder how much research you've actually done here? Public opinion on dog meat in Korea is shifting ... pretty much in lock-step with the increase of keeping dogs as pets in Korea. Additionally, people don't keep meat breeds of dog as pets. I wonder if you'll use historic cannabalism as an argument that humans are irrational for avoiding eating each other next?
- steve19 11y ago
  If you sell me food, I expect it is what you say it is. The horse is irrelevant beyond that it is cheap meat. I would be incredibly annoyed if I purchase American Grass Fed Beef and received Italian Pork disguised as beef. As for some animals being more protected over others: sometimes, in a democracy, you just have to roll with the majority. We tend not to like our pets to be eaten.
  - wildmusings 11y ago
    >If you sell me food, I expect it is what you say it is. The horse is irrelevant beyond that it is cheap meat. I agree that food should be labeled honestly. People who engage in that kind of dishonesty should be punished. But the high pitch of the outrage was very clearly because of the horse-meat taboo. >As for some animals being more protected over others: sometimes, in a democracy, you just have to roll with the majority. I agree, I certainly don't think people should break those laws. It's not a cause worthy of rebellion and all the harm it does. But that can't be an argument in favor of the majority's position. That would be an argument from majority, a logical fallacy. Bad ideas should be refuted.
  - _nedR 11y ago
    I agree with you. If the majority choose to adhere to a particular cultural norm or taboo, that is their choice. But there are also people (and it is not a small minority) trying to impose their culture and taboos on other people. Just look at all the pressure and calls for action against Chinese and Koreans over their consumption of dog-meat. Here is an example of a petition that gathered over 4 million votes (https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-yulin-dog-meat-eating-festival https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-yulin-dog-meat-eating-fest...) This article seems to cover the ethical and moral points, nicely : http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/22/eat-cats-dogs-meat-china http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/22/eat-cat...
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  > I don't see how it's anyone else's business what I do with an animal that belongs to me. I'm pretty comfortable with the idea of throwing people in jail for, say, setting a cat on fire. Whether it belongs to them or not doesn't really figure into that sentiment. (The same applies for, say, a pig. It's not about cuteness.)
- cr1895 11y ago
  >As mentioned in the interview, there was a massive scandal in Europe about horse meat being substituted for beef in some products. No one would have batted an eye if it was turkey being substituted for chicken, or lamb for beef. The outrage in Europe was largely due to horse meat not meant for human consumption making it into the food supply chain, right? The revulsion that many Americans feel about eating horse just isn't as prevalent in Europe.
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    Horse meat isn't consumed in Britain either, which is where the the mislabeled meats were discovered. I see what you're saying about the scandal though, that does seem to me like a reason to be upset.
    - creshal 11y ago
      The scandal was all over Europe, even in countries where horse meat is consumed. Problem one was substituting horse meat for beef or w/e (kind of a dick move). Problem two was using horse meat unfit for human consumption spiked with all sorts of veterinarian antibiotics (actually dangerous).
  - belorn 11y ago
    The outrage was very similar when a second meat scandal occurred in Sweden when fair trade marked high quality beef was substituted with a imported cheap alternative. No one likes being made a fool and paying 2-3 times the actually value, and different quality of meat has different amount of nutrition, water content, risk of human transferable diseases, toxics and antibiotic/environmental footprint. Most people also have a strong dislike of fraud, and do not like the knowledge that their money got into the hands of criminals.
    - cr1895 11y ago
      This is also unfortunately a rampant problem in seafood: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/bait-and-switch/388126/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/bait-and...
- jmspring 11y ago
  Sigh. Your post shows the typical HN response where libertarianism comes into play. It's about as bad as discussions around age, sexism, or visa issues. Anyone can bring a ballot measure forth, and well, in CA, people with horses are in general as full of their self importance as your blowhard post. Oh and people think horses are cute, so it passed. Regarding meat substitution, late 70s/early 80s Jack In the Box was substituting Kangaroo for beef. There was a large blow back. Sometimes it is out of emotion, sometimes it is out of misrepresentation.
- tjholowaychuk 11y ago
  People are ignorant, that's why they can't put two and two together. They're brainwashed and set in their stubborn ways, or have not spent enough time with animals to realize that they don't deserve the bullshit we put them through. We're basically all Nazi's to be blunt. I'm not even 100% against meat, primarily because I know some people will never be convinced, however the regulations regarding cruelty and laws against filming etc are total crap.
  - oilywater 11y ago
    Exactly, these laws and actions are failed (or maybe successful) attempts at trying to rationalize immoral behaviour. They convince themselves - believing they are kind and compassionate - that there are humane ways to end a life, humane rape, humane slaughter, humane immoral acts. It's a comedy.
- oilywater 11y ago
  > Especially eating it, which is in the natural order of things. Yeah, those claws that you use to hunt your food down are pretty natural. Appeal to nature is an argument flaw and if you are rational you shouldn't use it. Humans ate meat because they saved their energy. Do you know how they saved it? The non-human animals were walking around collecting nutrients so humans didn't have to waste that time. These non-human animals were nutrient packed and it allowed humans to save time, have more offsprings and survive. Today, there's no energy savings. Today we bring the food to the animals, filtering millions of tons of nutrient filled grains through inefficient bodies that waste almost everything on keeping their temperature - their body warm. It is as far from nature as it gets. You can't say there's something special about flesh that you need to survive, and there's nothing else that has it. You like the luxury of eating meat, you like the taste, you like the texture. It is a luxurious activity that you allow yourself to have, ignoring the effects on the environment, ignoring the suffering (and yes there is no such thing as humane murder, rape or slaughter), doing it just for your pleasure. And it recently turned out to be almost an equivalent to cigarette smoking - so it's entirely irrational from a health perspective but that is the case for most of the luxuries. That's fine with me but don't try to rationalize it, it is in its complete entirety - irrational. It is also ironic that you pointed out a perfect example of speciesism (humans preferring one species over another) and you couldn't label yourself as a speciesist. It is also ironic how you pointed out the irrationality in other people, not seeing your own when it was right in front of you.
  - douche 11y ago
    I'll take the way I've seen pigs and cows slaughtered when it comes time for me. Getting fed out of a nice trough of grain and never seeing the sledgehammer coming down is far more humane than getting your veins pumped full of nitrogen mustard and getting zapped with radiation for months. Chemotherapy for terminal cancers should be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Meat is tasty. It's a pain in the ass to raise and deal with those damn animals, and we wouldn't bother with them if they weren't good to eat or produced milk or eggs that are useful. The evolutionary forebears of the horse and the cow are extinct or well on the way there in the wild. Maybe more people should have the experience of slaughtering a pig or steer, dressing it out, hanging it, then cutting it up. It's a great biology lesson, you'll learn which cuts of meat come from where, and you'll become very suspicious of supermarket meat (hint - real hamburger is not bright red like that).
davidw 11y ago
It's still going strong in parts of Italy. South of Padova around Saonara there are a bunch of restaurants that offer horse meat. It's pretty good, although not one of the things I miss most about Italy in terms of food.
- 13of40 11y ago
  I saw horse on a menu in Venice last summer, but didn't get a chance to try it. I've had llama, though, and I heard they're similar.
  - davidw 11y ago
    I'd avoid eating anything in Venice unless you know a local. They'll charge foreigners one price, people from the Veneto another, and locals a third (cheaper) price. And that's if it's a decent place to eat, rather than one of the many very tourist-oriented locales where anyone local would never set foot.
    - numlocked 11y ago
      So...don't go to Venice? Or go there and fast?
      - davidw 11y ago
        Day trip from Padova or elsewhere, and bring sandwiches along. There are trains that run pretty late, so you can spend a long day there. If needs be, there are some ok pizza options and things like that near Campo Santa Margherita. But you'll get much more for your money by eating somewhere outside of Venice, unless you know someone. I lived in Padova for 15 years, speak fluent Italian, and the only time I ever felt like a got a good meal there was when I went to a place with a local my wife knew who did all the talking for us.
      - dagw 11y ago
        Definitely go to Venice, but as a tourist I found the most of the restaurants where among the worst I've eaten at in Italy, even places among places that had pretty good tripadvisor reviews. Buy food at the market or deli and make your own meals.
officer_gotcha 11y ago
Next on hacker news: Korean butcher worried about possible ban on beating dogs before slaughter, because without the beating the meat tastes worse.
tjholowaychuk 11y ago
Good.
greggman 11y ago
You can get raw horse meat at many restsurants in Japan. It's fairly common. In fact here's a search for places using the term 馬刺 [basashi] (馬=horse, 刺=from sashimi Lots of places come up specializing in it http://s.tabelog.com/smartphone/restaurant_list/list/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&sa=&sk=%E9%A6%AC%E5%88%BA&SrtT=trend&svd=20160208&svt=1900&svps=2&area_datatype=&area_id=&keyword_datatype=&keyword_id=&tid=&ifr=true http://s.tabelog.com/smartphone/restaurant_list/list/?utf8=%...
- melted 11y ago
  Yeah, I was kind of taken aback by raw horse meat sushi in a conveyor belt sushi place in Kyoto. Couldn't work up the courage to try it.
  - mikekchar 11y ago
    If you go back to Japan, I highly recommend trying it. It is one of my favourite foods. Horse meat has a nicer flavour than beef, and especially eaten raw it is amazing. Unfortunately horse meat is quite rare where I live (Shizuoka prefecture), so I only usually get to eat it when I'm travelling. I often wonder where the meat comes from though. Do they use young horses, or old, for instance? Also, the basashi I've had seems like it might be the tenderloin (it is very tender), so I wonder what happens to the rest of the animal. I'd very happily use it in stews if I could get it.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- contingencies 11y ago
  In China the most popular is donkey meat, or 驴肉 (lvrou, pronounced lew-row*). For those who don't study characters, the left-hand part of 驴 is 马 ( horse), which is the simplified form of the traditional character 馬 which is what the Japanese are still using, and has a reconstructed proto Sino-Caucasian root.[0] It's all over China but more popular perhaps in the north, Shandong and northern Jiangsu in the east to Xinjiang in the west. Of course part of this culinary capacity descends from earlier nomadic and steppe peoples. You can also try Mongol horse milk alcohol, which is now available right across China in bottled form. I think it's fair to say that in the past, most people ate most meat, as long as it was fresh and there were no local taboos. I haven't read any studies but for bacterial reasons I suppose that raw consumption correlates with cold climates. 0. http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=%2fdata%2fsinocauc%2fsccet&text_number=+665&root=config http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basen...
cr1895 11y ago
If you ever find yourself in northern Italy, near Lake Como, I highly suggest a trip to this little place called Alva Market. It's a food mecca; the place Italians make a trip to on a Sunday just to eat good pizzoccheri (buckwheat pasta with potatoes, greens, and cheese) or polenta taragna (buckwheat polenta with a dangerous amount of taleggio cheese). Everything there is homemade or coming from the nearby valleys; they raise their own livestock, make their own cheese, cure their own salumi. My visit is easily one of the best food experiences of my life and the highlght of everything I've done and eaten in Italy. What they're most known for is their bresaola. The've got a number of different kinds; beef, goat, etc., but what I was most enamored of was the horse bresaola. It was a slender cut of meat, allowing the rosemary, juniper, and other spices to really come through in each slice. The horse itself was quite sweet. Deep purpleish red. Truly incredible.
- carlob 11y ago
  Another incredible horse meat delicacy in Italy is the "pesto di cavallo" from Parma: imagine a tartare, but without all the yolk and capers bullshit and made of horse rather than beef… And in Italy is strictly forbidden to slaughter work-horses for human consumption, though sometimes they crack down on an illegal butchery in Sicily, in the north you should be fairly safe.
  - bobf 11y ago
    Parma is an incredible town for food, and the whole Emilia-Romagna region is worth an extended visit. I spent 2 weeks exploring the area last summer and loved it. Within a 30 mile radius of Parma, you can sample some of the best fruits and vegetables, stuffed pastas (ravioli), Parmesan cheese, balsamic vinegar, wine, and sausages in the world -- almost unbelievably cheaply! If you're looking for pesto di cavallo in particular, there's a great sandwich shop in Parma called Pepèn that I'd suggest.
  - ptbello 11y ago
    I spend quite a lot of time in Parma. If you happen to go there, know that the best pesto di cavallo shop is the one at the beginning of Via Emilia Est, just off the square to the right. It's a tiny place, always choc full - you would probably recognise it by the queue spilling out on the pavement. They only do pesto di cavallo, offering different varieties and even ready made pesto di cavallo tacos!
wmt 11y ago
Finland still carries horse meat, but it's still a rarity, as nobody grows horses for making meat, and it's just adult horses that were put down for some other reason. The nice thing about it being so rare is that it's really cheap! You might get a good horse steak from the meat counter half the price of the best beef steaks, and it's much better than any beef steak I've ever eaten in any country. Reindeer steaks on the other hand, those are among the best steaks made out of any animal I've eaten. There the price comes from the fact that reindeer herds need hundreds if not thousands of square kilometres to roam freely. The good thing is that Finland has 123 000 sqkms of wilderness (roughly the size of Greece or Mississippi) officially dedicated for herding reindeer!
- onre 11y ago
  The reason for it being rare here in Finland is the lack of demand. Most horses that are put down would be perfectly fine for human consumption, but slaughterhouses do not buy them for the aforementioned reason. The primary consumer of horse meat in Finland is the sausage industry, and they buy cheap South American meat by ton.
- mynameishere 11y ago
  I suppose European reindeer are different, but Canadian reindeer (caribou) is the worst meat I've ever tasted, aside from beef liver.
  - meric 11y ago
    If we're counting internal organs, I'd say pig brains is just about the worst.
    - timonovici 11y ago
      I think that's just personal taste :) I remember eating fried pigs brain, rolled in flour, and it was delicious. Also, pigs testicles are quite good if fried in a certain way (with lots of garlic and wine), but disgusting in every other way I tried.
lowpro 11y ago
Is anyone familiar with horse meat in the US? I'd like to try some for a reasonable price, I've never heard of it being sold here though.
- cr1895 11y ago
  I found this article: http://priceonomics.com/when-americans-ate-horse-meat/ http://priceonomics.com/when-americans-ate-horse-meat/ Much to my surprise, in 2012 the US was the top 3rd producer of horse meat trailing China and Kazakhstan. It's illegal in some states to raise horses for human consumption. No federal funds are available to conduct necessary inspection of horse slaughterhouses, so the three major horse "slaughterhouses" just export the live horses to Canada or Mexico for slaughter before shipping the processed meet over to Europe.
Tharkun 11y ago
Horse meat is very common in Belgium. As steak, as sandwich topping, or as part of many foods containing mince.
- fs111 11y ago
  Even Bicky burgers contain horse meat...
makeset 11y ago
> I don't see how it's anyone else's business what I do with an animal that belongs to me. This is why we have animal welfare laws, because there are people like you out there.
- wildmusings 11y ago
  I think abusing animals is wrong. But human interests are always more important than any animal interests. The government must exist solely to protect human interests.
  - _nedR 11y ago
    >The government must exist solely to protect human interests. I mostly agree with you about the meat consumption thing, but this? Are you saying govt. shouldn't be in the business of wildlife conservation, prevention of animal cruelty or abuse, or preservation of natural habitats (beyond considering their impact on humanity) ?
    - marcoperaza 11y ago
      Those things only matter in terms of their value to humanity. There are most probably an uncountable number of planets like Earth out there. The only thing special about this one is that it is our home. That doesn't mean that we should seek to disrupt the environment. On the contrary, it is very precious to us for many reasons and should be protected. A lot of those reasons are very utilitarian. But it's also because we appreciate its beauty, its complexity, and our kinship with all life. But those are still all things that we value.
      - asciimo 11y ago
        When the inhabitants of those planets ask why your interests are worth their consideration, what will you say?
        marcoperaza 11y ago
pbreit 11y ago
Do we (USA) not eat horse and dog meat because we have special feelings for those animals?
- oska 11y ago
  It's certainly true that there is a wide and long history of eating dog meat around the world [1]. However, I think a distinction can be made between eating the meat of a herbivore (horses) and eating the meat of a carnivore/omnivore (dogs). And I'd suggest that it is healthier to eat the meat of herbivores. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat
  - douche 11y ago
    > However, I think a distinction can be made between eating the meat of a herbivore (horses) and eating the meat of a carnivore/omnivore (dogs). What distinction would that be? People eat bear-meat, hogs are at least partially omnivorous, and virtually every food species of fish and seafood is carnivorous. Or else a carrion-eater, like lobsters.
  - testerooooooo 11y ago
    Dude, have you read anything about what pigs eat????
- fractallyte 11y ago
  Well, the other way around as well: those animals have evolved special feelings for us. It's harder to eat something when our conscience gets in the way...
  - tluyben2 11y ago
    Pigs have too. If you raise them like pets they will have that same thing. There is no difference and people are hypocrites valuing one life over another that way. Edit; the will is do here; I had pet pigs and did not eat them, they are smart(er than dogs) and very rapidly bored. But a lot of fun. Very happy animals in the right environment.
softiron 11y ago
This guy should send his apprentices and customers to Mongolia. Here whatever meat is cheapest reigns. All types are at multi-year lows because of a drought and now extra cold winter called a dzud. Depending on the preparation, I like horse meat a lot, and it gets a lot of play from people who prefer it to typically prepared mutton or beef.
oilywater 11y ago
Human is a label we gave to ourselves. Would you discriminate over homo erectus, homo habilis - would you call them non-human animals, would it be okay to use them for medical testing, maybe for food since their flesh doesn't have Neu5Gc? The only reason why your statements are this speciesist is that no living ancestor of ours that was labeled a different species is alive today. Otherwise you'd realize that species are a human construct, that there's no better/worse. Yes, that does mean that human as a fully moral being (morality comes from rationality) should try to minimize pain and suffering and destruction of life. Animal holocaust is happening for thousands of years. Even the holocaust survivors have made comparisons and a lot of them have plant-based diets.
- garrettgrimsley 11y ago
  >Otherwise you'd realize that species are a human construct, that there's no better/worse. Go try breeding with a horse and get back to us on that.
  - oilywater 11y ago
    Same way humans were differentiated by using races - ranking us lower/higher better/worse than others, that's what people do with species. If you find the theory of evolution a fact, then you wouldn't laugh at me. Any rational evolutionary biologist will agree that species are here to simplify the conversations, they cannot be used for ranking which species are better - they are also not the main theme of research. Do you know how species are defined? Sane definition? - members of the same species can produce a fertile offspring. But there are hundreds if not thousand of exceptions where this happens even across the species boundary - the reason why it happens is that our labeling is in its core subjective and somewhat arbitrary, there's no dividng line/plane/svm-hyperplane. In the parallel lines of time in evolution and natural selection we've been as long as all the living beings. You wouldn't find homo erectus (neanderthalensis, habilis, rudolfensis, ergaster, floresiensis, even some australopithecae) attractive but you could procreate. There's a biological reason why you can't have children with a horse, it's not a species reason, it's not even ingrained in our species labeling as can be seen from the above definition. What, you would rank the being as irrelevant (or less relevant) if you can't have children with it? Comedy of irrationality. Go try finding your rationality and get back to us on that.
pi-rat 11y ago
One of the best steaks I've ever had was horse meat. Highly underrated.
ss6754 11y ago
If you guys are ever in Kazakhstan I highly recommend trying horse meat. We love us some delicious horsey:)
- contingencies 11y ago
  In great country of Kazakhstan, horse gallop to own final supper! .. seriously though, see the proto Sino-Caucasian reconstructed phoneme I posted above.
gadders 11y ago
Britain's Princess Anne recently suggested that eating horse being taken more seriously in Britain [1]. There is a glut of horses in the UK, most of which (unless a particular breed) are effectively worth nothing. A lot of horses just get abandoned on spare fields in what is called "fly grazing". [1]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/agriculture/meat/10449803/Princess-Anne-We-should-consider-eating-horse-meat.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/agriculture/meat/10449...
nefitty 11y ago
Obligatory: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_eating_meat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_eating_meat
halviti 11y ago
Iceland still uses horses for meat. The restaurant that provides the food at my workplace usually incorporates it into the menu every other week or so. Really horses are much more suited to our climate/landscape than other animals, so it makes sense.
bambax 11y ago
When I was a kid my mother did tartare de cheval (raw minced horse meat) every saturday; there was an equine butcher shop right in front of our apartment building in Paris. Now it's been a while since I've had horse meat, but I remember it to be pretty good. What I don't know is why there should be a special butcher shop specifically for horse meat? In a regular butcher shop you can buy many other animal products than just beef (pork, rabbit, duck, chicken, lamb, etc.) so what's so special about horse?
- blubb-fish 11y ago
  Probably the stigma.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Its so very very easy to substitute horse for beef and cut costs. I imagine the separation is to try to eliminate even the appearance of that possibility. Same reason you don't see "Yoshi Sushi House" and "Bob's Live Bait" under the same roof.
- HelloNurse 11y ago
  Popularity. In Parma, poultry (and other birds) and horse (including donkey) are the only butcher specializations; even pork isn't common enough.

103 points by Vigier 11y ago

It's quite common in Quebec, Canada, but not the rest of the country.

I very much remember the Chevaline butcher shops as a child and even as an adult 20 years ago. Times have changed (though I have never had any desire to eat horse).

wildmusings 11y ago

I'm fascinated by how irrational people are about food. In California, it's a felony to slaughter a horse. And that isn't some old law that no one's bothered to repeal, it came about through a ballot initiative in 1998. A few other US states have bans, and the federal government allocates zero dollars to the mandatory screening of any horse meat factories, so it's effectively banned nationwide. I don't see how it's anyone else's business what I do with an animal that belongs to me. Especially eating it, which is in the natural order of things. As mentioned in the interview, there was a massive scandal in Europe about horse meat being substituted for beef in some products. No one would have batted an eye if it was turkey being substituted for chicken, or lamb for beef. Regulators would obviously have punished those responsible, but the public wouldn't have cared if there was no safety issue. But horses, and everyone loses their minds. How bizarre. It's the same thing with cats and dogs. People have no problem with killing pigs, and they sure love their bacon, but a lot of those same people would throw you in jail for eating cats or dogs. I don't understand it. Yes, I get that cats and dogs are pets. Are people really willing to ruin a human being's life, just to support the fantasy that little Fluffy is a person?

peteretep 11y ago
> how irrational people are > the public wouldn't have cared if there was no safety > issue But there was a safety issue, so it wasn't irrational. Also people do seem pretty clear on not eating animals which are also widely kept as pets, with the exception perhaps of rabbit.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  From the research I've done, the main safety concern was Bute given to horses, and it seems like it's actually very rare for horsemeat to test positive for it and that when present, the amounts are not significant. Am I missing something? >Also people do seem pretty clear on not eating animals which are also widely kept as pets, with the exception perhaps of rabbit. I understand that apprehension. I'd probably have the same apprehension if a plate of dog meat was put in front of me, at least at first. I've had pet dogs and I cared a lot about them. But to throw someone else in jail over it? That ruins families, childhoods, and lives. Just so we can live with the fantasy that Fluffy is a person.
- garrettgrimsley 11y ago
  Separating the two sentences that you did from the comment as a whole weakens the argument that the poster was making. You don't address the point they made about people having no qualms about eating pig meat while simultaneously forbidding the consumption of cat and dog meat. I don't see how this is a rational position. >Also there seems to be a pretty clear dividing line between pets and food. Maybe in the time and place in which you exist, but in others the distinction is not the same. I have a pet dog, but I also enjoy bosintang. Is there a rational basis for why I can't have bosintang in the US? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_slaughter_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_slaughter_in_India
  - peteretep 11y ago
    > You don't address the point they made about people > having no qualms about eating pig meat while > simultaneously forbidding the consumption of cat and > dog meat > > Also there seems to be a pretty clear dividing line > > between pets and food There, you quoted it just after you called it an irrational position O_o > I have a pet dog, but I also enjoy bosintang. Is > there a rational basis for why I can't have bosintang > in the US? I wonder how much research you've actually done here? Public opinion on dog meat in Korea is shifting ... pretty much in lock-step with the increase of keeping dogs as pets in Korea. Additionally, people don't keep meat breeds of dog as pets. I wonder if you'll use historic cannabalism as an argument that humans are irrational for avoiding eating each other next?
steve19 11y ago
If you sell me food, I expect it is what you say it is. The horse is irrelevant beyond that it is cheap meat. I would be incredibly annoyed if I purchase American Grass Fed Beef and received Italian Pork disguised as beef. As for some animals being more protected over others: sometimes, in a democracy, you just have to roll with the majority. We tend not to like our pets to be eaten.
- wildmusings 11y ago
  >If you sell me food, I expect it is what you say it is. The horse is irrelevant beyond that it is cheap meat. I agree that food should be labeled honestly. People who engage in that kind of dishonesty should be punished. But the high pitch of the outrage was very clearly because of the horse-meat taboo. >As for some animals being more protected over others: sometimes, in a democracy, you just have to roll with the majority. I agree, I certainly don't think people should break those laws. It's not a cause worthy of rebellion and all the harm it does. But that can't be an argument in favor of the majority's position. That would be an argument from majority, a logical fallacy. Bad ideas should be refuted.
- _nedR 11y ago
  I agree with you. If the majority choose to adhere to a particular cultural norm or taboo, that is their choice. But there are also people (and it is not a small minority) trying to impose their culture and taboos on other people. Just look at all the pressure and calls for action against Chinese and Koreans over their consumption of dog-meat. Here is an example of a petition that gathered over 4 million votes (https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-yulin-dog-meat-eating-festival https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-yulin-dog-meat-eating-fest...) This article seems to cover the ethical and moral points, nicely : http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/22/eat-cats-dogs-meat-china http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/22/eat-cat...
PhasmaFelis 11y ago
> I don't see how it's anyone else's business what I do with an animal that belongs to me. I'm pretty comfortable with the idea of throwing people in jail for, say, setting a cat on fire. Whether it belongs to them or not doesn't really figure into that sentiment. (The same applies for, say, a pig. It's not about cuteness.)
cr1895 11y ago
>As mentioned in the interview, there was a massive scandal in Europe about horse meat being substituted for beef in some products. No one would have batted an eye if it was turkey being substituted for chicken, or lamb for beef. The outrage in Europe was largely due to horse meat not meant for human consumption making it into the food supply chain, right? The revulsion that many Americans feel about eating horse just isn't as prevalent in Europe.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  Horse meat isn't consumed in Britain either, which is where the the mislabeled meats were discovered. I see what you're saying about the scandal though, that does seem to me like a reason to be upset.
  - creshal 11y ago
    The scandal was all over Europe, even in countries where horse meat is consumed. Problem one was substituting horse meat for beef or w/e (kind of a dick move). Problem two was using horse meat unfit for human consumption spiked with all sorts of veterinarian antibiotics (actually dangerous).
- belorn 11y ago
  The outrage was very similar when a second meat scandal occurred in Sweden when fair trade marked high quality beef was substituted with a imported cheap alternative. No one likes being made a fool and paying 2-3 times the actually value, and different quality of meat has different amount of nutrition, water content, risk of human transferable diseases, toxics and antibiotic/environmental footprint. Most people also have a strong dislike of fraud, and do not like the knowledge that their money got into the hands of criminals.
  - cr1895 11y ago
    This is also unfortunately a rampant problem in seafood: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/bait-and-switch/388126/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/bait-and...
jmspring 11y ago
Sigh. Your post shows the typical HN response where libertarianism comes into play. It's about as bad as discussions around age, sexism, or visa issues. Anyone can bring a ballot measure forth, and well, in CA, people with horses are in general as full of their self importance as your blowhard post. Oh and people think horses are cute, so it passed. Regarding meat substitution, late 70s/early 80s Jack In the Box was substituting Kangaroo for beef. There was a large blow back. Sometimes it is out of emotion, sometimes it is out of misrepresentation.
tjholowaychuk 11y ago
People are ignorant, that's why they can't put two and two together. They're brainwashed and set in their stubborn ways, or have not spent enough time with animals to realize that they don't deserve the bullshit we put them through. We're basically all Nazi's to be blunt. I'm not even 100% against meat, primarily because I know some people will never be convinced, however the regulations regarding cruelty and laws against filming etc are total crap.
- oilywater 11y ago
  Exactly, these laws and actions are failed (or maybe successful) attempts at trying to rationalize immoral behaviour. They convince themselves - believing they are kind and compassionate - that there are humane ways to end a life, humane rape, humane slaughter, humane immoral acts. It's a comedy.
oilywater 11y ago
> Especially eating it, which is in the natural order of things. Yeah, those claws that you use to hunt your food down are pretty natural. Appeal to nature is an argument flaw and if you are rational you shouldn't use it. Humans ate meat because they saved their energy. Do you know how they saved it? The non-human animals were walking around collecting nutrients so humans didn't have to waste that time. These non-human animals were nutrient packed and it allowed humans to save time, have more offsprings and survive. Today, there's no energy savings. Today we bring the food to the animals, filtering millions of tons of nutrient filled grains through inefficient bodies that waste almost everything on keeping their temperature - their body warm. It is as far from nature as it gets. You can't say there's something special about flesh that you need to survive, and there's nothing else that has it. You like the luxury of eating meat, you like the taste, you like the texture. It is a luxurious activity that you allow yourself to have, ignoring the effects on the environment, ignoring the suffering (and yes there is no such thing as humane murder, rape or slaughter), doing it just for your pleasure. And it recently turned out to be almost an equivalent to cigarette smoking - so it's entirely irrational from a health perspective but that is the case for most of the luxuries. That's fine with me but don't try to rationalize it, it is in its complete entirety - irrational. It is also ironic that you pointed out a perfect example of speciesism (humans preferring one species over another) and you couldn't label yourself as a speciesist. It is also ironic how you pointed out the irrationality in other people, not seeing your own when it was right in front of you.
- douche 11y ago
  I'll take the way I've seen pigs and cows slaughtered when it comes time for me. Getting fed out of a nice trough of grain and never seeing the sledgehammer coming down is far more humane than getting your veins pumped full of nitrogen mustard and getting zapped with radiation for months. Chemotherapy for terminal cancers should be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Meat is tasty. It's a pain in the ass to raise and deal with those damn animals, and we wouldn't bother with them if they weren't good to eat or produced milk or eggs that are useful. The evolutionary forebears of the horse and the cow are extinct or well on the way there in the wild. Maybe more people should have the experience of slaughtering a pig or steer, dressing it out, hanging it, then cutting it up. It's a great biology lesson, you'll learn which cuts of meat come from where, and you'll become very suspicious of supermarket meat (hint - real hamburger is not bright red like that).

davidw 11y ago

It's still going strong in parts of Italy. South of Padova around Saonara there are a bunch of restaurants that offer horse meat. It's pretty good, although not one of the things I miss most about Italy in terms of food.

13of40 11y ago
I saw horse on a menu in Venice last summer, but didn't get a chance to try it. I've had llama, though, and I heard they're similar.
- davidw 11y ago
  I'd avoid eating anything in Venice unless you know a local. They'll charge foreigners one price, people from the Veneto another, and locals a third (cheaper) price. And that's if it's a decent place to eat, rather than one of the many very tourist-oriented locales where anyone local would never set foot.
  - numlocked 11y ago
    So...don't go to Venice? Or go there and fast?
    - davidw 11y ago
      Day trip from Padova or elsewhere, and bring sandwiches along. There are trains that run pretty late, so you can spend a long day there. If needs be, there are some ok pizza options and things like that near Campo Santa Margherita. But you'll get much more for your money by eating somewhere outside of Venice, unless you know someone. I lived in Padova for 15 years, speak fluent Italian, and the only time I ever felt like a got a good meal there was when I went to a place with a local my wife knew who did all the talking for us.
    - dagw 11y ago
      Definitely go to Venice, but as a tourist I found the most of the restaurants where among the worst I've eaten at in Italy, even places among places that had pretty good tripadvisor reviews. Buy food at the market or deli and make your own meals.

officer_gotcha 11y ago

Next on hacker news: Korean butcher worried about possible ban on beating dogs before slaughter, because without the beating the meat tastes worse.

tjholowaychuk 11y ago

Good.

greggman 11y ago

You can get raw horse meat at many restsurants in Japan. It's fairly common. In fact here's a search for places using the term 馬刺 [basashi] (馬=horse, 刺=from sashimi Lots of places come up specializing in it http://s.tabelog.com/smartphone/restaurant_list/list/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&sa=&sk=%E9%A6%AC%E5%88%BA&SrtT=trend&svd=20160208&svt=1900&svps=2&area_datatype=&area_id=&keyword_datatype=&keyword_id=&tid=&ifr=true http://s.tabelog.com/smartphone/restaurant_list/list/?utf8=%...

melted 11y ago
Yeah, I was kind of taken aback by raw horse meat sushi in a conveyor belt sushi place in Kyoto. Couldn't work up the courage to try it.
- mikekchar 11y ago
  If you go back to Japan, I highly recommend trying it. It is one of my favourite foods. Horse meat has a nicer flavour than beef, and especially eaten raw it is amazing. Unfortunately horse meat is quite rare where I live (Shizuoka prefecture), so I only usually get to eat it when I'm travelling. I often wonder where the meat comes from though. Do they use young horses, or old, for instance? Also, the basashi I've had seems like it might be the tenderloin (it is very tender), so I wonder what happens to the rest of the animal. I'd very happily use it in stews if I could get it.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
contingencies 11y ago
In China the most popular is donkey meat, or 驴肉 (lvrou, pronounced lew-row*). For those who don't study characters, the left-hand part of 驴 is 马 ( horse), which is the simplified form of the traditional character 馬 which is what the Japanese are still using, and has a reconstructed proto Sino-Caucasian root.[0] It's all over China but more popular perhaps in the north, Shandong and northern Jiangsu in the east to Xinjiang in the west. Of course part of this culinary capacity descends from earlier nomadic and steppe peoples. You can also try Mongol horse milk alcohol, which is now available right across China in bottled form. I think it's fair to say that in the past, most people ate most meat, as long as it was fresh and there were no local taboos. I haven't read any studies but for bacterial reasons I suppose that raw consumption correlates with cold climates. 0. http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=%2fdata%2fsinocauc%2fsccet&text_number=+665&root=config http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basen...

cr1895 11y ago

If you ever find yourself in northern Italy, near Lake Como, I highly suggest a trip to this little place called Alva Market. It's a food mecca; the place Italians make a trip to on a Sunday just to eat good pizzoccheri (buckwheat pasta with potatoes, greens, and cheese) or polenta taragna (buckwheat polenta with a dangerous amount of taleggio cheese). Everything there is homemade or coming from the nearby valleys; they raise their own livestock, make their own cheese, cure their own salumi. My visit is easily one of the best food experiences of my life and the highlght of everything I've done and eaten in Italy. What they're most known for is their bresaola. The've got a number of different kinds; beef, goat, etc., but what I was most enamored of was the horse bresaola. It was a slender cut of meat, allowing the rosemary, juniper, and other spices to really come through in each slice. The horse itself was quite sweet. Deep purpleish red. Truly incredible.

carlob 11y ago
Another incredible horse meat delicacy in Italy is the "pesto di cavallo" from Parma: imagine a tartare, but without all the yolk and capers bullshit and made of horse rather than beef… And in Italy is strictly forbidden to slaughter work-horses for human consumption, though sometimes they crack down on an illegal butchery in Sicily, in the north you should be fairly safe.
- bobf 11y ago
  Parma is an incredible town for food, and the whole Emilia-Romagna region is worth an extended visit. I spent 2 weeks exploring the area last summer and loved it. Within a 30 mile radius of Parma, you can sample some of the best fruits and vegetables, stuffed pastas (ravioli), Parmesan cheese, balsamic vinegar, wine, and sausages in the world -- almost unbelievably cheaply! If you're looking for pesto di cavallo in particular, there's a great sandwich shop in Parma called Pepèn that I'd suggest.
- ptbello 11y ago
  I spend quite a lot of time in Parma. If you happen to go there, know that the best pesto di cavallo shop is the one at the beginning of Via Emilia Est, just off the square to the right. It's a tiny place, always choc full - you would probably recognise it by the queue spilling out on the pavement. They only do pesto di cavallo, offering different varieties and even ready made pesto di cavallo tacos!

wmt 11y ago

Finland still carries horse meat, but it's still a rarity, as nobody grows horses for making meat, and it's just adult horses that were put down for some other reason. The nice thing about it being so rare is that it's really cheap! You might get a good horse steak from the meat counter half the price of the best beef steaks, and it's much better than any beef steak I've ever eaten in any country. Reindeer steaks on the other hand, those are among the best steaks made out of any animal I've eaten. There the price comes from the fact that reindeer herds need hundreds if not thousands of square kilometres to roam freely. The good thing is that Finland has 123 000 sqkms of wilderness (roughly the size of Greece or Mississippi) officially dedicated for herding reindeer!

onre 11y ago
The reason for it being rare here in Finland is the lack of demand. Most horses that are put down would be perfectly fine for human consumption, but slaughterhouses do not buy them for the aforementioned reason. The primary consumer of horse meat in Finland is the sausage industry, and they buy cheap South American meat by ton.
mynameishere 11y ago
I suppose European reindeer are different, but Canadian reindeer (caribou) is the worst meat I've ever tasted, aside from beef liver.
- meric 11y ago
  If we're counting internal organs, I'd say pig brains is just about the worst.
  - timonovici 11y ago
    I think that's just personal taste :) I remember eating fried pigs brain, rolled in flour, and it was delicious. Also, pigs testicles are quite good if fried in a certain way (with lots of garlic and wine), but disgusting in every other way I tried.

lowpro 11y ago

Is anyone familiar with horse meat in the US? I'd like to try some for a reasonable price, I've never heard of it being sold here though.

cr1895 11y ago
I found this article: http://priceonomics.com/when-americans-ate-horse-meat/ http://priceonomics.com/when-americans-ate-horse-meat/ Much to my surprise, in 2012 the US was the top 3rd producer of horse meat trailing China and Kazakhstan. It's illegal in some states to raise horses for human consumption. No federal funds are available to conduct necessary inspection of horse slaughterhouses, so the three major horse "slaughterhouses" just export the live horses to Canada or Mexico for slaughter before shipping the processed meet over to Europe.

Tharkun 11y ago

Horse meat is very common in Belgium. As steak, as sandwich topping, or as part of many foods containing mince.

fs111 11y ago
Even Bicky burgers contain horse meat...

makeset 11y ago

> I don't see how it's anyone else's business what I do with an animal that belongs to me. This is why we have animal welfare laws, because there are people like you out there.

wildmusings 11y ago
I think abusing animals is wrong. But human interests are always more important than any animal interests. The government must exist solely to protect human interests.
- _nedR 11y ago
  >The government must exist solely to protect human interests. I mostly agree with you about the meat consumption thing, but this? Are you saying govt. shouldn't be in the business of wildlife conservation, prevention of animal cruelty or abuse, or preservation of natural habitats (beyond considering their impact on humanity) ?
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    Those things only matter in terms of their value to humanity. There are most probably an uncountable number of planets like Earth out there. The only thing special about this one is that it is our home. That doesn't mean that we should seek to disrupt the environment. On the contrary, it is very precious to us for many reasons and should be protected. A lot of those reasons are very utilitarian. But it's also because we appreciate its beauty, its complexity, and our kinship with all life. But those are still all things that we value.
    - asciimo 11y ago
      When the inhabitants of those planets ask why your interests are worth their consideration, what will you say?
      - marcoperaza 11y ago

pbreit 11y ago

Do we (USA) not eat horse and dog meat because we have special feelings for those animals?

oska 11y ago
It's certainly true that there is a wide and long history of eating dog meat around the world [1]. However, I think a distinction can be made between eating the meat of a herbivore (horses) and eating the meat of a carnivore/omnivore (dogs). And I'd suggest that it is healthier to eat the meat of herbivores. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat
- douche 11y ago
  > However, I think a distinction can be made between eating the meat of a herbivore (horses) and eating the meat of a carnivore/omnivore (dogs). What distinction would that be? People eat bear-meat, hogs are at least partially omnivorous, and virtually every food species of fish and seafood is carnivorous. Or else a carrion-eater, like lobsters.
- testerooooooo 11y ago
  Dude, have you read anything about what pigs eat????
fractallyte 11y ago
Well, the other way around as well: those animals have evolved special feelings for us. It's harder to eat something when our conscience gets in the way...
- tluyben2 11y ago
  Pigs have too. If you raise them like pets they will have that same thing. There is no difference and people are hypocrites valuing one life over another that way. Edit; the will is do here; I had pet pigs and did not eat them, they are smart(er than dogs) and very rapidly bored. But a lot of fun. Very happy animals in the right environment.

softiron 11y ago

This guy should send his apprentices and customers to Mongolia. Here whatever meat is cheapest reigns. All types are at multi-year lows because of a drought and now extra cold winter called a dzud. Depending on the preparation, I like horse meat a lot, and it gets a lot of play from people who prefer it to typically prepared mutton or beef.

oilywater 11y ago

Human is a label we gave to ourselves. Would you discriminate over homo erectus, homo habilis - would you call them non-human animals, would it be okay to use them for medical testing, maybe for food since their flesh doesn't have Neu5Gc? The only reason why your statements are this speciesist is that no living ancestor of ours that was labeled a different species is alive today. Otherwise you'd realize that species are a human construct, that there's no better/worse. Yes, that does mean that human as a fully moral being (morality comes from rationality) should try to minimize pain and suffering and destruction of life. Animal holocaust is happening for thousands of years. Even the holocaust survivors have made comparisons and a lot of them have plant-based diets.

garrettgrimsley 11y ago
>Otherwise you'd realize that species are a human construct, that there's no better/worse. Go try breeding with a horse and get back to us on that.
- oilywater 11y ago
  Same way humans were differentiated by using races - ranking us lower/higher better/worse than others, that's what people do with species. If you find the theory of evolution a fact, then you wouldn't laugh at me. Any rational evolutionary biologist will agree that species are here to simplify the conversations, they cannot be used for ranking which species are better - they are also not the main theme of research. Do you know how species are defined? Sane definition? - members of the same species can produce a fertile offspring. But there are hundreds if not thousand of exceptions where this happens even across the species boundary - the reason why it happens is that our labeling is in its core subjective and somewhat arbitrary, there's no dividng line/plane/svm-hyperplane. In the parallel lines of time in evolution and natural selection we've been as long as all the living beings. You wouldn't find homo erectus (neanderthalensis, habilis, rudolfensis, ergaster, floresiensis, even some australopithecae) attractive but you could procreate. There's a biological reason why you can't have children with a horse, it's not a species reason, it's not even ingrained in our species labeling as can be seen from the above definition. What, you would rank the being as irrelevant (or less relevant) if you can't have children with it? Comedy of irrationality. Go try finding your rationality and get back to us on that.

pi-rat 11y ago

One of the best steaks I've ever had was horse meat. Highly underrated.

ss6754 11y ago

If you guys are ever in Kazakhstan I highly recommend trying horse meat. We love us some delicious horsey:)

contingencies 11y ago
In great country of Kazakhstan, horse gallop to own final supper! .. seriously though, see the proto Sino-Caucasian reconstructed phoneme I posted above.

gadders 11y ago

Britain's Princess Anne recently suggested that eating horse being taken more seriously in Britain [1]. There is a glut of horses in the UK, most of which (unless a particular breed) are effectively worth nothing. A lot of horses just get abandoned on spare fields in what is called "fly grazing". [1]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/agriculture/meat/10449803/Princess-Anne-We-should-consider-eating-horse-meat.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/agriculture/meat/10449...

nefitty 11y ago

Obligatory: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_eating_meat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_eating_meat

halviti 11y ago

Iceland still uses horses for meat. The restaurant that provides the food at my workplace usually incorporates it into the menu every other week or so. Really horses are much more suited to our climate/landscape than other animals, so it makes sense.

bambax 11y ago

When I was a kid my mother did tartare de cheval (raw minced horse meat) every saturday; there was an equine butcher shop right in front of our apartment building in Paris. Now it's been a while since I've had horse meat, but I remember it to be pretty good. What I don't know is why there should be a special butcher shop specifically for horse meat? In a regular butcher shop you can buy many other animal products than just beef (pork, rabbit, duck, chicken, lamb, etc.) so what's so special about horse?

blubb-fish 11y ago
Probably the stigma.
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Its so very very easy to substitute horse for beef and cut costs. I imagine the separation is to try to eliminate even the appearance of that possibility. Same reason you don't see "Yoshi Sushi House" and "Bob's Live Bait" under the same roof.
HelloNurse 11y ago
Popularity. In Parma, poultry (and other birds) and horse (including donkey) are the only butcher specializations; even pork isn't common enough.