Why the UK says 'neigh' to horse-meat | The Cambridge Student ...

Image - Stockvault.net

Would you be left hoarse at the prospect of eating horse? Some of the mightiest of meat-eaters in the UK say 'neigh' to horsemeat, occasionally with a stamp of the feet and flick of the mane. But though we may not know it, our fears are saddled to the historical origins of horse-eating, whether that is in anti-Pagan superstition or in the revulsion of eating a long-gone form of transport, and it may be time we moved on.

As a general rule, we agree that one should not eat ones pets. The horse is now given pet status by many in the Western world, particularly in the UK and Ireland. We tend not to want to eat animals that we think of as pets, but there seems to be more to the issue than the psychological transference of 'cuteness' onto certain animals, especially in regards to the horse. I am not suggesting that 'Black Beauty' and 'My little Pony: Friendship is Magic' did not play their parts; I am merely pointing out that other personified animals were easily translated from the TV screen to the TV dinner tray. Thus, this is not an issue of meat or no-meat, to eat or not to eat: this is an issue of discrimination. Would you eat a chicken? Would you eat your cat? In light of both your answers, would you eat a horse? The recent stampede of national newspapers reporting the finding of horse DNA in some 'beef' burgers being sold in UK and Irish supermarkets meant that the manure hit the fly-deferring fan. There the issue or the 'beef' of the matter was that horse meat was being called 'beef', for no-one likes being deceived. Here the issue is whether we deceive ourselves in the differentiation of what meat is okay to eat, and what is definitely not so well and good to put in one's mouth, outside of Heston Blumenthal's house-come-madhouse.

Yet a look at why we feel this way is revealing. To eat a horse, as a British person, is not cool, for a variety of reasons. Horse-eating, or hippophagy, is both intensely political and yet ambiguous in its political symbolism. The horse can be aligned with the rural muddy-kneed labourer, using the horse for heavy work and agricultural feats otherwise impossible. Nobles enjoyed putting their backsides on the beasts; horses carried the King. Thus to consume a horse was to consume a symbol of your class, regardless of that class. The horse, to rich and poor alike, meant less work, and became equated with greater comfort and ease of labour. A knight was nothing without his steed, and even later in history, to eat a horse was to eat the best form of transport available in the pre-Industrialisation era, before the development of the railway. One would not eat a fine car, as it would be foolishly wasteful. One would not eat a creature that had won wars, and yet, if the British can ride a horse into lines of spears, why is there a specifically Anglophone abhorrence to spurring the creatures into a line of incisors? Pope Gregory III may helpfully provide one potential answer to a question not as tough and sinewy (but rather lean and tender) as one would imagine. In 732 AD he began to combat the ritual consumption of horse-meat in pagan practice, allowing the belief to spread (to the non-pagan population) that eating horse-meat was dirty and wrong - it would seem that for many, this belief has lingered on. But all taboos are made to be broken, and Pope Gregory's reign of influence should surely come to an end very soon.

As a journalist of very little influence, I can hardly recommend mass horse-eating, for fear of select outbursts of vomiting when we all tuck into basashi (horse-meat) ice cream, a delicacy even in Japan. Furthermore, I neither endorse paganism nor persecute it. However, eating horse meat is no more barbarian than eating black pudding or beef. An open-minded approach to obscure culinary curiosities can even be healthy. Horse-meat has near identical nutritional value to beef, save it contains more iron. If Brits were to remember this vital piece of rational information, rather than beclouding facts with pagan associations of un-cleanliness and romanticised notions of the Uffington White Horse, then in a survival situation, we would no doubt fare the better. It must be admitted that the Uffington Horse would appear rather less sacrosanct if it were circled with a chalk line representing a plate. Regardless, if we were Robinson Crusoe or a school child of William Golding's creation Lord of the Flies, we would likely not be so fussy and try to differentiate between ham and horse, beef and boa. Although these individuals are hardly ideal role models, it is still, ultimately, illogical to be happy to eat the dead flesh of a pig or chicken, while the horse apparently deserves a species specific respect, preferably directed towards a cocked rifle rather than an open mouth. One would be justified in asking whether this is utter horseshit?

Sky Holmes, 1st year English student, Homerton

This article was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2013. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Source: http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/issue/comment/why-the-uk-says-neigh-to-horse-meat/

extenze tenacious d steve smith zou bisou bisou tim tebow press conference tebow press conference trina