It’s often mentioned in writings of explorers, soldiers and pioneers of resorting to eating horse when short of rations.

The other day we were conversing with a man of many trades. One of his sidelines was collecting and marketing animals to the Muslims in our area. Apparently their religion calls for them to dispatch and butcher their own meat according to religious ritual. Anyway, among the expected goats, sheep, geese, etc, was also horse. He said they like horse but love camel but good camel is hard to come by.

Anyway, he gave some detail in what makes a good horse for eating. Not young, fat horse as I expected, but an older horse – say 8 years old – and one that is grass fed instead of grained. He said the yellow fat is to be avoided as it tastes bad.

He also said he had donated a horse each of the last three years to a community BBQ. Said the first year they had 100 people show up, the next 150 and last year 300. I asked how many were protesters. He said none, we have guns.

I asked if they ground it all up in burger and he said some but also make steaks, roasts, etc.

Apparently you can’t take your horse down to the butcher shop and have them slaughter and butcher it. I’d also guess you can’t market the meat. But you can do it yourself and consume it. That is for now in this state.

Bibbyman When I was in Iceland they eat what they call"HESS" Icelandic ponies.They raise horses are a food crop just like we raise beef.In Europe horse is eaten to. We lived with an old Spanish War vet when I was a kid and he said when the pack mules come in the resupply then in the hills one of the MISSOURI BEEF didnt go back down the hill.

Folks, I lived in Minnesota for a number of years, and way back in the 70s, I think, I found a local meat market was selling horsemeat. I bought a couple of steaks and some hamburger. The meat was "beefy", but very lean. The steaks were actually too lean, and I probably needed to cook them VERY slowly. But they weren't bad at all. The hamburger was great! It didn't shrink up like beef burger does, for some reason. I imagine they put a little lard in it, but not very much.
Don't know if horsemeat is still available in Minnesota, and was actually surprised to see it then. Maybe they got caught and shut down!

Dick

and old friend in Oregon had an Appaloosa...cantankerous old cuss(the horse)and one winter, the horse struck Cockroach from behind and layed him out for a bit....he said he finally come to(lucky he didn't freeze to death)and went in the house, loaded his .54 pistol and took his revenge on said horsecritter...as Ken(Cockroach) would say-well, he ate better than he ever rode...

Most places in the world horse is a common meat. I see no big deal here. I've had horsemeat and didn't much like it, other than that, meat's pretty much meat. I don't much like lobster either for what that's worth.

Three Hawks

About 30 years ago, I was in France with a group of young people. We were eating one night at a hotel and the meat in the dish was difficult to identify. One of the young ladies asked the waiter (in English) if it was horse. He replied, "S'Beef!" From then on, any meat we could not identify we called "Speef."

Now, I have jokingly, long refered to those ever so popular and equally as useless, tiny little miniature horses as "roastin' ponies",
but I really had no idea...
TCA

I ate horse once. Back in my early teens My Dad and I were camping witha large group and were served the best BBQ "beef" sandwich I ever had. My Dad pushed the cook to get his recipe and was suprised when he was told what the main ingrediant was. I also lived in Korea for 2 years and while there ate dog meat. It was delicious !!! It is also very expensive, one of the most expensive meats they had. When I read of the early explorers and trappers being fed dog by the NDNs it brings back some good memories.

With prices of all other foods on the rise, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of more horse on the family table.

There was a “killer” market for any excess horse population but that market has been outlawed. So now there is a glut of horses that the owners can’t dispose of. I’ve heard tales of horses being abandoned.

Dad, Ole fat Billy and I once made plans to buy a canner from one of his neighbors, but as you might have expected, Bill couldn't raise his half. Would have been about $50 apiece for us to get close to 200 lbs of meat each. Mighty cheap pile of chops when you figure it. Spose' we can get Breezy and Duny to sell one that cheap?

I spent some time in France and what is generally served as 'bifstek' is really horse. I'm sure I have eaten it. Survived.

A friend of mine's dad wanted to see if horse would be like mountain oysters. Well when it came time for Trigger to get gelded, he saved them. After soaking in salt water for a couple of days, they were fried up and we ate them. Not bad. Very similar to fried tenderloin. That's why I was almost stuck with Stud Nuts around the camp.

Read somewhere thet the "Paches favored Army mule over any other meat they could get.
Then agin, they was allus doin' things th' hard way.

quote:

Most places in the world horse is a common meat. I see no big deal here.

Unless you need a tetanus shot, and blow up like a balloon! You might want to check with the local health organization as folks who eat horse, or recently ate horse, should not get a tetanus booster in the US. Something about how they produce the American vaccine, or at least it used to do so. They may have changed the procedure. They used to produce it a bit differently for folks in countries like France were horse is commonly on the menu.

LD