From GENE LOGSDON
Recently, as everyone knows by now, horse meat was found in Swedish meatballs being sold in various parts of Europe, and the Great Horse Scandal of 2013 was off and (pardon me) galloping. From the consternation being voiced in some quarters, you would think that human flesh had been found in the sausages. Of course if the label says the meat is all beef then it ought to be all beef, not flecked with pork to incense the Muslims and Jews, and definitely not contaminated with old Dobbin’s remains to send British and American eaters gasping to the vomitorium. Also, there’s a possibility that the horsemeat might come from a horse that had been treated with the anti-inflammatory medicine, phenylbutazone (bute), which is verboten for human consumption. But as I read the fine print from the FDA, you have a better chance of being hit by a pebble from a passing meteor than getting stoned by bute in horsemeat-“contaminated” meatballs. Did anybody get sick? Did the meatballs taste bad? Did they maybe taste better? Did anybody know they were eating horsemeat until they were told?
Nothing is so fascinating as the way human culture tries to manipulate the food chain to serve whatever religion or tradition is in vogue. In France, horsemeat is served in fine restaurants. In England a chef would have better luck serving up hedgehog than horse.
Humans will eat anything to make a point or to avoid going hungry. Being ultra-omnivorous is probably why we have lasted so long in the food chain. In Frank G, Ashbrook’s “Butchering, Processing and Preservation of Meat,” the book I use as a guide when butchering everything from hogs to raccoons and muskrats, the author describes (from an earlier account) a traditional meal in Tudor England: “One by one, to the blast of trumpets, the tremendous platters of food were borne into the hall. The greatest fanfare was reserved for the wild boar’s head, the stuffed swan, and the roasted peacock, fully dressed with spreading tail and gilded beak.”
American cities have a huge problem and expense because of stray cats and dogs (abandoned by human “pet lovers”) but during the influx of immigrant Vietnamese a few years ago, a solution to the problem was in the offing. Like many Asians, these people are accustomed to eating cats and dogs and they promptly set about solving the problem in California. Horrified, officialdom banned the practice. Stupid, I say. But we live now in a society that is humanizing cats and dogs so much that I wonder if they will soon be allowed to vote. The idolatry of the horse is even more pronounced, more revered than the cowboy and the frontier farmer who made it a cultural icon. Horses are not only not eaten (horrors) but movements are on to prohibit them from being killed for any reason. Old horses are to be retired to die of old age in circumstances a whole lot more comfortable that what starving children in Somalia are experiencing.
The Masai in African slake their thirst with a mix of cow’s blood and milk. In Sumatra, people enjoy a gourmet coffee that comes from beans picked out of the droppings of civet cats. This beverage has a special taste for which some will pay $600 a pound. Locusts are considered fine eating in various parts of the Middle East. I’ve heard that in Thailand roasted dormice are quite a treat.
So what is so bloody wrong with eating horsemeat? I haven’t eaten any, I don’t think, but would like to. Just try to find some in the U.S. It is rated low in cholesterol so is healthier for you than pork or beef.
But never fear, science is (again pardon) galloping to the rescue. According to the latest news on the food front, we will eventually produce meat in vitro in factories. Then you could eat a horse steak that never was a part of a beautiful flowing mane, or flashing Kentucky Derby hooves, or a loving nickering neigh. Or defiled by medical bute or the likes of John Wayne’s butt.
~~
The Contrary Farmer 
44 Comments
I am in agreement. When growing up in southern Nova Scotia, there were many teams of oxen (still quite a few now). These oxen worked side by side with the farmer and responded to voice commands. When an ox got too old to work, it went for hamburger to be consumed by the farmer and his family. A teamster/farmer will grow very close to his team but very few people can afford to feed retired large animals so into the freezer they had to go. I don’t see much difference with a horse.
I rolled my eyes while reading a western novel a while back. In the story, a saddle horse was killed by indians while the cowboys were pinned down in the desert. That night the hero snuck out and killed an antelope so they would not starve. I think if it was me pinned down in a hot desert I would have eaten the large, dead animal before it went bad.
One last note, a couple of years ago I could not figure out where all the cheap horses were coming from. A guy down the road who didn’t have two dimes to rub together (and no hay) suddenly had seven horses. I eventually heard that, because the US did not allow horses to be butchered (at the time), the Canadian slaughter houses were flooded with American horses. The Canadian horse market collapsed because who wants to pay thousands of dollars for a horse when they can be had for slaughter prices? Horses at the local sale barn still go for fifty or a hundred bucks.
Locally, feral horses are doing great damage to the sagebrush steppe and watersheds. Cougars and bears make a bit of a dent in the horse population but the horses survival tactics keep them going in great numbers. Many years ago when horses were still valued for work a great many of the local feral horses were rounded up for the army (Shades of Man From Snowy River) There is a beautiful mural in Toppenish, WA depicting this event. However some horses escaped the roundup and with additions from farm escaped or released stock their numbers have increased again far beyond what the range can support. In a dry environment there is a fine line between enough grazing and over-grazing.
The Wildlife Department of the Yakama Nation Reservation located within the boundaries of South Central Washington State does what it can to capture and somewhat tame some of the feral horses for sale so they can be purchased very reasonably. (You can look it up on the web if so desired) One of these feral horses was was captured and purchased for my daughters when my daughters and the horse were quite young and lets say the young horse and young girls were very good for each other. The horse learned to pull kids on skis, carry the girls for miles on trips along local country roads and even carry them through flood waters ( a story in itself) and traverse our local mountain range and even to pull out small logs for firewood , and pull a harrow, pull a buggy for miles, which ended up making her look like an equine version of Arnold Schwarzenegger and even herd cattle. She was even ridden or driven in parades which she really enjoyed.
I challenge horse lovers to adopt or purchase such animals or else accept the fact that to have such horses killed humanely is necessary in order to save the damaged range. In any case to watch a horse die with the ravages of old age such as disease, crippling arthritis or any number of horse ailments is not a pleasant experience. It’s better to either kill them humanely on the range to feed the local food chain or else to have them eaten by hungry people or even pets such as dogs and cats.
I’ve eaten horse meat many years ago and it was very much like eating good elk meat. Let us not forget that not so long ago in human history or maybe pre-history, depending upon how one defines history, wild horses were hunted for food long before they were used as mounts and draft animals. If Genghis Khan were alive today he would be really excited to put feral or unwanted horses to use, although we may not like some of the ways he would use them. Also Modern Day Mongols still use horse milk as a base for a healthful yoghurt-like drink. So perhaps there is a market for putting female horse to good use above just draft or riding or eating . Also let us not forget that Eliot Coleman’s books recommend the use of horse manure with straw as a base for vegetable growing compost. Once the petroleum runs out these feral and excess domestic horses may become valuable again for transportation and draft work. That sounds doable and sustainable. When the horses working days are done they can indeed be eaten. I’ve yet to find anyone proposing we eat tractors and cars.
“The idolatry of the horse is even more pronounced, more revered than the cowboy and the frontier farmer who made it a cultural icon.”
I think you probably have misstated that a bit, although I understand your point. However, in the real world, those who work with horses, as working cowboys and ranchers still do, are amongst those least likely to view the horse as an “icon.” We like horses, but being familiar with livestock of all types, we don’t have them elevated to that status. And, moreover, we’re amongst those who are most perplexed by the goofy romanticism attached to horses and the horror that any should be slaughtered.
Being a big animal, and being an animal, I often wonder why people have such a problem with the older ones being slaughtered for meat, which seems so much more useful and sensible than letting a massive animal die out in the field and rot. I am also perplexed by the idea that American activists have on this topic that we somehow should avoid letting horses ending up on people’s tables, as they don’t live forever anyway, and if the French want to eat them, so be it. I don’t feel we should be telling the French what not to eat, anymore than I want HIndus telling me what I shouldn’t be eating.
This raises a real concern–the laws and regulations forbidding small scale, local and on-farm slaughter of many types of animals, even those traditionally raised for food, in many places. We raise some of our own food (rabbits, chickens and veggies) in the city, but must do so quietly and we certainly can’t profit from any surplus in this zoning. Sad that even in many agriculturally zoned places it’s not possible due to lack of services and/or restrictive legislation.
As for how to decide which animals to eat, I’m one of those crazy folk who believe that even the lowliest creature is sentient, even plants. Human vanity is what allows us to imagine we’re more intelligent and more soulful. I don’t think the food web considers sentience or possession of soul as an argument against predation. As for eating other humans, that’s an easy one: I don’t want to eat folks I like; and I certainly wouldn’t want to eat the folks I don’t like!
Tori
We’re more likely to steal, cheat, and lie to get food if we’re starving as well. That doesn’t make those things right. Neither does it make the avoidance of those things during abundant times foolish. It just means that hunger is a powerful motivator. I’m thankful that I live in a world with access to enough varieties of food that I don’t need to compromise anything to eat.
Bahahaha! You would be amazed at what taboo’s one will throw out the air-lock when they start to experience REAL hunger; not missing one or two meals hunger. After pooping in the scrub and bathing in a bucket for a while you start to realize just how stupid the vast majority of “popular” opinions are!
I would have answered your boys: “You are cute too, but that won’t prevent me from eating you if times get tough.” ^-^
I’d give it a try. Even thought about during the last crisis that included free horses. Only problem is, if I hung a horse on the butcher pole, my wife would hang me right next to it! I asked my two young boys (who will eat anything that moves) if we should eat horses, they said “no”. I asked why. They said, “Because they are cute”. Somebody got to them…
Years ago when I was growing up we still had a couple horses left over from when my dad and grandfather worked the farm with horses and we used them for small things like cultivating the garden.Unlike some of the horses around today these horses would stay fat on marginal hay and grazing land that a cow would starve to death on as they can consume large amounts of roughage and glean nutrients from them it.We only gave them a few oats when we worked them and they were exceptionally healthy, problem free and lived to around 30 years old.Many acres of poor land in the SE US could be utilized to grow slaughter horses if the market was there turning animals into pets and show pieces is usally very determental to the breed overall.
If you want to do your own, the butcher in that BBC show said it should be dry-aged a minimum of 11 days. Most horses slaughtered are old riding and race horses, but horses raised specifically for meat are usually young draft horses. That’s what they do in France, but even though they import most of their horse meat, they do export these young draft horses for meat to Spain and Italy, go figure.
Horse meat is even less efficient than beef at converting feed into proteins, so it will stay confidential as it is economically expensive to raise. The only affordable horse meat is those retired riding and race horses. Horses can live up to 25 years, few people can afford pasture and feed that long for “unproductive” animals, although living that old, I personally think that they’ve earned the right to stay on the farm almost like a family member, and they can still be useful on a small farm till their last day.
Ew, I am not religious but wouldn’t want to eat people à la Deb’s Soylent Green or as a cannibal. Even without that non-religious mental taboo, I believe there are many health reasons for not doing so.
I have loved horses, owned horses, shown horses, and, on a trip to Quebec several years ago, eaten horse. Knowingly. It was quite tender and tasty.
I think that this hysteria is another symptom of people being too far removed from the realities of their food supply. I currently own goats and chickens, and I have to say that the goats are just as endearing as horses, in their own way. That doesn’t mean that this year’s cull bucks won’t end up as curry; it means I enjoy the company of my livestock, and strive to treat them well while they’re in my care, which includes recognizing their personalities and interacting with them appropriately. I am okay with this, because I know how they are raised and how they are slaughtered, and I can live with my conscience. However, I think that if most North Americans had to see, on a day-to-day basis, the realities of their (horrifying, factory-based) food supply, there would suddenly be a lot more vegetarians in the world…
That was classic.
I would suggest that you have never “knowingly” eaten horse meat since. About 30 years ago I happened to have a conversation with a livestock wheeler-dealer from another community for reasons that would take to long to explain. He was legendary even in our locale and some of the stories were probably even true. In the course of the conversation he told me about a cook-out that he had held for the local bankers that he dealt with. He had grilled the steaks for them while they had appetizers and they all commented on the quality of the main entree before they left. What they didn’t know was that he had butchered a donkey and had fed them donkey steak. Kind of like life – it’s really hard to tell sometimes whose ass is getting roasted.
I have to disagree with the person who suggested that horses are never raised for food in the US. Back in my college days, in my Horse Production class, we specifically talked about breeding horses that would be useful for several markets, including slaughter. The instructor also talked about how inhumane things would become for horses if they decided to shut down the US slaughterhouses that handled horse. He was quite right…
I love horses, but I would eat them. I adore goats and chickens, and I eat them. To each his own.
Things like this horse meat ‘scandal’ only happen in affluent western societies where we can afford to be picky.The average rural Chinaman would love to have some horse meat to fill the empty spot on their plate and in their stomachs.As we decend into economic chaos in the near future hunger will make many much less picky and the excess horse problem will be solved along with the excess anything else that can be caught and eaten,Suits me since I grew up eating muskrats and my favorite snapping turtle.
The problem with the horse meat scandal is the miss labeling. Beef is the most expensive meat here in Europe. I have eaten horse many times. It doesn’t taste much different than beef. As far as how to humanely kill a horse it’s not difficult if you have a small facility and are only killing a small number. The large slaughter houses are the problem. It is easier to keep small facilities clean and treat the animals in a calm manner but their isn’t as much money to be made this way.
There is a series on BBC3 that started today called “Horsemeat Banquet” that featured horse, insects, and that extremely costly Petri dish beef meat you mentioned. They also analyzed some London street food and found some beef and black beans that did not have beef meat but chicken, beef blood and heart, and some curried goat that was not goat either, nor any animal they knew…
They had some guests who were presented steak Tartare, burger and stirloin steak all from horse, only one person tried all dishes, another tried 2 of them, and the rest did not have any. Maybe it had to do with Pinocchio, a live horse that was present in the dining room!
Years ago, in the days of my careless youth, I traveled to Costa Rica. It was some sort of student exchange organizing trip but we mostly enjoyed evenings of twenty-five cent beer and endless rounds of interesting appetizers. On the last night of the adventure I tried horse meat.
It was good at first. Kind of spicy but with a somewhat unpleasant (in my opinion) texture, but not horrible..
Later, I found it did not agree with me or with the fellow I was traveling with.
A day later I met the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. She sat down next to me in the Miami airport. She was blond and happy and she had on a bright red dress and she spoke with a delightful Southern accent. Not the harsh accent you hear in TV shows when they are making fun of rural people, but the soft accent one dreams of when reading F.Scott Fitzgerald or Faulkner and she was talking to me.
I was doing quite well for a change, using the unfailing technique of repeating, “how interesting, tell me more…” and I was trying to think of something witty to make her laugh and trying to see if her eyes were blue or green and also trying desperately not to look somewhat lower than her eyes when my friend walked up behind me and asked me if I was still suffering from diarrhea and if so there was now a free spot in the men’s room.
She got a funny look on her face and when I turned to tell my former friend to get lost, she got up and moved to the other side of the waiting room!
I did not try to follow. I know when I am licked. How could you recover from something like that?
I have never eaten horse meat since that trip.
In the animal kingdom everything is eaten by something. The only exception in most cases but not all is that most animals don’t eat their own kind…usually. It seems to me then that anything that can be eaten should be including horses. I would gladly eat the horse tainted meatballs.
an article on laboratory meat, grown in a large petri dish tenderized with electrical stimulation was in Popular Science last year.
And I have had the luxury of being able to have cattle killed, skinned, and gutted on the farm, and the carcass taken off for aging in a cooler before cutting and packaging. There’s only one small business left in the whole state of North Carolina licensed (grandfathered in) to kill animals on the farm. If I had an organically raised horse — which they ideally ought to be whether they’re going to be used as people food or not — I wouldn’t hesitate to eat it, all the more if I could have it killed on the farm. I suppose it’s still legal to kill a horse on your own farm for your own use? Would you age horse meat similar to beef?
Agreed: short of “religious reasons” we’ve got no solid reason not to eat each other.
I don’t eat pork.
The situation, as I see it. is the product was fraudulently mislabeled. The real “crime” is the majority of ingredients added to processed foods that were never intended to be consumed by humans. We have, in my opinion, the right to know what we feed ourselves. Horse, cow, pig, locust, broccoli, GMO, non-Gmo. It is being fully aware of what we are eating that is the point. Only with that knowledge can a person choose to eat what matches their values.
The best thing about the comment above on soylent green is that it would greatly help reduce the population of the planet’s most invasive species. 😉
I have to respectfully disagree. If your requirement is an animal that cannot reason for itself, I recommend you stop eating pork as well. In my experience, most hogs are as intelligent as most dogs if not more so. Better cut out Babe from the dinner table and serve up Fido.
Gene, I believe you are right. If any product says it is 100% is should be. But the rest of the story is media hype and govt. officials creating panic and fear for their own purposes.
I have to agree that the way people humanize animals is ridiculous especially when groups like PETA act so hysterically and then kill 95% of the animals they “rescue”(in Virginia) and usually do it within 24 hours. On the other hand most of the slaughterhouses for horses closed after they were no longer able to procure wild(feral) horses and did so under horrendous conditions with methods that were horrifying in the extreme.
As to the idea that there are no slaughterhouses in the US I have to say that I think you are quite mistaken. I read a news article in the past couple of months that from what I remember a man who ran a slaughterhouse specifically for horses (I think in Colorado) was under suspicion of killing the horses he adopted from the BLM because he refused to tell anyone where they are.
I must confess to mixed feelings on the issue. We have raised Quarter Horses for forty years and I know how close you can become to an animal. My old saddle mare was my best buddy for many years.
I think part of the issue is the idea that an animal is killed in a slaughterhouse — let’s not mince words here, folks, calling it an abbatoir may fancy up the name, but doesn’t otherwise change anything. There are plenty of those places that abuse animals on their way to death; the animals can smell the blood and fear pheromones, so it’s no wonder they go crazy. If you’ve never been inside one, it’s hard to understand the reality of the situation. It does seem a betrayal to send an animal with which you have had a close partnership into a situation like that, with humans — which you have taught it to trust — deliberately doing terrifying things to it. Slaughterhouse workers can become desensitized to the animals’ suffering, which is not good for humans or horses. For that matter, I am not enamoured of killing any animal in a slaughterhouse.
I have had the luxury of being able to kill old and infirm (or young and badly injured) animals quickly, in the pastures they roam, and bury them on the property. Ditto for cats and dogs, which on a working ranch are much less pets than a necessity for rodent control and predator deterrence. There is no question that it is a luxury.
If I or my family were hungry enough, however, I would kill and eat my horses and bless them for helping us survive. They would die as quickly and painlessly as we could manage it, and I’d say a pray to speed them on their way to whatever afterlife animals have (I do the same thing for all the animals we kill). I’d cry my eyes out, but I’d still do it.
As a horse breeder and owner….I suggest that you are misinformed. Horses are not raised for the food chain in the US. PERIOD!
They are used for sport and work and are treated as humans are for various injuries and maladies with various DRUGS, most of those labels list warnings ~ DO NOT USE IN HORSES INTENDED FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION. Look down any shed row and you will find everyday products from bute to wormers to hoof dressings to fly spray that warn of these risks.
Personally, I’d prefer Soylent Green. It would go a long ways towards improving the economy by freeing up a lot more jobs, it would reduce global warming as fewer cars would be needed, and generally would improve the neighborhood.
This is a very good point and a reflection on our skewed way of treating meat that tends to think that large abattoirs are the best way of getting meat to people.
A friend of mine here in Latvia needed a horse and a friend of hers who works in an abattoir and promised to tell her when one came in that was still usable as a work horse (nothing too hard, for most of the year), but one of the main problems was, as my friend explained, that in the time that horses spent in the abattoir area they often went crazy. Fortunately she did manage to get one that remained calm and is proving a good enough horse for her to work with. So it is not just the US where the horses get panicky.
Actually, the horse situation is even worse since slaughtering has been prohibited in the U.S., as most of these horses now travel in horrible conditions to Canada, Mexico or for most of them much further, to Japan. Retired horses are still slaughtered, all of them, just not locally. Well, it was never really locally since there was only 3 slaughter houses left in the U.S. when they were condemned.
I guess that between the Leviticus prohibition (what doesn’t it prohibit?) and the love of horses from riding and caring for them, this was predictable.
I am afraid you’ll have to travel to France for a great horse rumsteak or grilled “pear”, much cheaper than the filet-mignon: http://boucherie-cheval.fr/viande-chevaline/morceaux-a-fondue-de-cheval-poiremerlan-viande-chevaline/
Incidentally, since the lasagna/horse meat scandal, horse meat consumption has known a revival in France. People seemed to have forgotten all about horse meat and got curious about it just like you. Except that they could just go to the horse butcher or supermarket to purchase some.
I haven’t had any horse meat for a good 20 years, I seem to recall last time was a raw Tartare steack.
If people really cared so much about horses, they’d stay off the track, stop attending horse shows and circus. People need to step away from their computers and see the world the way it really is. I hate to break it to them, but we’re all dying of something and slaughter can be kinder than lots of ways nature would arrange death… people shirking full participation is what creates the circumstances for real animal suffering.
If they were put before me, I would probably eat those Ikea meatballs without a second thought. There were however, several articles last year, well preceding this scandal, about the extremely high levels of “bute” in horsemeat from racehorses. I think this could be a valid concern. Otherwise, I think your article is spot-on!
The real issue is how, not where, you draw the line between what you will and will not eat. You suggest the only reasons for abstaining from eating one particular species or another are irrational. I disagree. I draw the line at the point where I personally feel confident that the intended food has minimal conscious awareness, complex thought, or emotions. I am just not comfortable eating an animal that has the ability to think and feel in complex ways that are similar to how I think and feel (no matter how humane the slaughter). For that matter, ask yourself why you don’t eat fellow humans? Short of religious reasons (which we know are not universally shared), there are no clear answers that draw a clean line at saving humans and eating anything and everything else. So if you’re going to exclude humans from the butcher block, what’s so irrational about excluding others if you have a principled way of deciding?
Slobber away, Persimmon. I agree with you completely. Gene
LOL! I gave away my horse trailer years ago! I now attend horse shows strictly as a fan.
I have two farm dogs and I love my dogs, but! You’ve hit a nerve with me. People are losing perspective when it comes to pets.
Our state legislature is considering a bill that would require dog owners to bring their dogs in out of the cold when the weather gets to a certain temperature. This concerns me not because I want dogs to freeze to death but because laws do not get applied with common sense. Are we talking about Siberian huskies or teacup poodles? pets or working dogs? I have goats and a guard dog’s job is to stay out with the goats! Will I have to bring the whole goat heard into the living room too?
And people who attend social events to raise money for rescuing pooches ought to do a little research on hunger in America and get their priorities straight. When we solve the human hunger problem and get our Web of Life back in balance, then maybe we can worry about the civil liberties of pets. Sorry to slobber all over your website, Gene.
Hi Gene, I have a close friend whose life mission is horse welfare, and, feeling as you do that eating horses is not any less ethical than eating any other meat, I asked her why all the fuss. Beyond the fact that many people find themselves aesthetically averse to eating horse, she tells me that horse slaughter is particularly inhumane because of the nature of the animal. Apparently it’s a very difficult and ugly process that invariably (in this country anyway) involves completely panicked animals. I asked: How then, should horses be put to death in cases where they need to be or ought to be? She says the only humane way to kill a horse is to euthanize it, which costs around $250, hence people don’t want the expense. I also have now, thanks to her, read a bit about the slaughterhouses, and these apparently are horrendously run businesses known to be able to employ only mainly felons and the like, because the work is so awful, which brings danger into the towns with the slaughterhouses, and to be prone to heavily pollute their communities. Of course, these problems are of the type that seem more or less significant depending on the perspective of the audience, which I guess explains the current news. In any case, perhaps the larger issues are around humane ways to kill horses and better enforcement of slaughter facilities’ output. Throwing in these few cents on behalf of my friend.
If city folks don’t stop dropping off their unwanted cats and kittens by my barn, I may have to ask you for some feline recipes 🙂
Yes, Marrion, and you’d better not go to a livestock show with an empty trailer–you’ll be going home with an old horse!
No comment on eating Black Beauty except to say your ability to write with wit and insight into any topic is refreshing.
I’m sure you’ll get plenty of outraged remarks from the equine-maniacs on your viewing list. However, I’d like to say that the trend toward treating horses as pets rather than livestock has not been in the best interests of the animal. When equine slaughter houses were closed in Texas and Illinois, the bottom fell out of the horse market; there was no base price for a horse. Before, you could set the bottom price for a horse at its slaughter value (so much per pound). In our area, the unintended consequence of these closures has been that folks who don’t have the money to feed and care for their animals and can’t sell them, just turn them loose to wander local back roads and highways. If the horse doesn’t get hit by a car or attacked by a wolf or cougar or simply starve to death, the county animal control officer has to collect it. As a result, the local county budget for caring for abandoned animals has increased tenfold in the past five years.
I was a schoolboy in WWII and always hungry. I remember my father took my brother and I (but not my mother) to a restaurant in Soho, London (England) that served horse meat steaks. It was busy as the meat ration at that time was only a few ounces a week.
I would like to say that it was ‘delicious’ but alas I cannot remember the taste.