Several other European countries, notably Italy, Spain, Germany, and Switzerland, have achieved a small measure of hippophagic acceptance. Search for protein during the war and for some years after that accustomed Europeans to think of alternative possibilities. As recently as 1951, when meat was still scarce, the British consumed 53,000 horses. However, as other meats became abundant, horsemeat faded as a food for people. Moreover, animal rights activists in the United Kingdom have often shown vigilance about protecting the horse from becoming steak on the table.
In Asia, horsemeat is an important food in Mongolia, where the horse has been deeply integrated into a still traditional rural society. In addition, Mongolians consume mare’s milk, usually in fermented form (kumiss). Though their religion bars it, Islamic people in Inner Asia have also been known to eat horseflesh.
In Japan, horsemeat is a favorite meat in the preparation of teriyaki, and in the 1980s Japan imported about one-fourth of the tonnage in the world trade of refrigerated or frozen horsemeat. Australia is a major supplier.
In the Western Hemisphere, no national culture has integrated hippophagy into its dietary possibilities, least of all those with a strong orientation toward carnivory. Argentines and Uruguayans, who are mostly of European origin, have rejected it, although some Indians of the pampas ate the meat of horses descended from those brought by the Spaniards. Some North American Indian groups who acquired the horse from the Europeans also ate horseflesh. In the United States, consumption of horsemeat is low; in fact, throughout North America, it is readily available (though not widely consumed) only in the Canadian province of Quebec. French immigrants are reported as a major clientele of the 10 horsemeat shops in the city of Montreal in 1992.
The United States is the leading horsemeat-produc-ing country in the world (FAO Production Yearbook 1990). In 1992, nearly 250,000 horses were slaughtered in the country. Thoroughbred race horses, including champions that once got high stud fees, usually end their days at the slaughterhouse. The $500 to $1,000 sale becomes a way to recover something of the high expense of raising them. Commercialization of this product has been both for shipment abroad as human food and for dog food.
In spite of the abundance of horses, equine flesh has never gained acceptance as a human food in the United States. Harris (1985) has concluded that horse-meat did not catch on because beef and pork could be produced more cheaply. More likely, preconceptions about the suitability of horsemeat have stemmed from an earlier bias brought by Europeans. Moreover, a small but vocal minority of. Americans are actively opposed to its use as human food. One emotionally based argument is that it demeans such a noble animal to undergo slaughter as human food. Curiously, much less is said about the appropriateness of horsemeat as dog food, suggesting an ethic that requires humans to deal with horses in narrowly defined ways. Horse abuse in the United States receives much more publicity than mistreatment of cattle, sheep, or pigs.
The lack of horsemeat availability in American meat shops says much about the low demand, but proprietors are also afraid of losing business by making it available in the meat case. Episodes over the years of fraudulent labeling of horseflesh as beef have led to the (erroneous) assumption that the former is, by definition, an inferior meat, perhaps even tainted in some way. A slaughterhouse owner in South Carolina, who has long shipped horsemeat to the European market, has made several attempts to introduce horsemeat in his state with no lasting success. As was the case initially in Europe, a lower price for horse-meat would seem to be the critical mechanism in its acceptance. Yet economics dictate that good-quality horseflesh cannot be sold at a price much below that of beef. An unusually strong American concern for healthful and lowfat foods could possibly give it a niche. But up to now its best-known usage has been at the dining service of the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There it has been maintained as a quirky tradition since World War II, when it was difficult to obtain beef.
Daniel W Gade
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World History
