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Horsemeat sushi
It's very tasty, definitely gamy, extremely tender, and delicious but only in small quantities. Eat it first in your sushi order, not last. Here is more information.
Addendum: Do visit the comment left at 8:19 p.m.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 29, 2008 at 04:01 PM in Food and Drink | Permalink
Comments
It's not sushi (which is a kind of rice) but "bazashi", more akin to sashimi (the sashi and zashi come from the same character)
Posted by: Andrew at May 29, 2008 4:10:59 PM
In North American culture there are standard food taboos that underlie the indigenous cuisine.
Look, I'm willing to break the taboo against eating horse when having a steak in France. And I'll overlook the taboo against eating raw food when I eat sushi. But I refuse to break both of them at the same time. I think I'll pass.
Posted by: at May 29, 2008 5:41:08 PM
Just makes me madder that everyone's trying to stop people from slaughtering horses in the United States. Now what chance do I have to enjoy their delicious flesh?
Posted by: Lindemann at May 29, 2008 6:20:18 PM
If you fancy continuing with raw horse meat, try French steak tartare.
Posted by: jean-christophe at May 29, 2008 6:20:46 PM
Does anyone else keep misreading the title of this blog post? The proximity of "horse" and "sushi" keeps making me see a naughty word.
Is this a subconscious reflection of my opinion of Marginal Revolution?
Posted by: Bob Murphy at May 29, 2008 7:35:21 PM
Bob,
For absolutely no good reason, here are some anagrams of "horsemeat sushi":
A heiress's mouth
A horse, mushiest
A hussie's mother
Messiah shouter
Seahorses hum it
Huh, seamier sots
Seamier ho's tush
Measure his shot
Measures? Oh sh*t
Um, seahorse sh*t
Humor eases this
Messiah outs her
Other messiah? Us
His hot measures
Steamier, so hush
Shouts, "Erase him!"
Oh true messiahs
This hour, sesame
Moth sushi? Erase!
I, harshest mouse
Rehash: it's mouse!
Mishear, sue host
Posted by: at May 29, 2008 8:19:07 PM
Once I was eating hamburgers my mom had made when we lived in France, they tasted unusually good so we checked the package, and realized that instead of ground beef we'd just eaten ground horse! Despite the good taste we were sufficiently repulsed so as to never eat it again...although now I would definitely try it if I were back in France.
Posted by: Paul N at May 29, 2008 8:28:09 PM
You can buy ground horse meat at most grocery stores in Quebec. Truly a distinct society.
Posted by: Simon at May 29, 2008 9:44:01 PM
It disgusts me that people can talk in such a carefree way about these amazing animals. "Just makes me madder that everyone's trying to stop people from slaughtering horses in the United States. Now what chance do I have to enjoy their delicious flesh? "? WTF. This is ignorant and repulsive. If one were to eat horse meat, although i hope no one would as it is horrible and disgusting, they should at least give the animal they got it from some respect. Many of those horses you are eating are unsuccessful racehorses from the USA. Have you ever experienced interacting and bonding with a horse? I strongly believe no one should eat anything they haven't had experience with bonding beforehand; you might rethink your choices.
Posted by: Caitlin at May 29, 2008 10:24:13 PM
I agree with Caitlin. Eating dog meat in China was much better because I had previously played fetch with mum's Rhodesian Ridgeback.
Posted by: doctorpat at May 29, 2008 10:51:00 PM
I generally only eat horse with a side order of whale tripe.
Posted by: Kris at May 29, 2008 11:10:15 PM
The real question for you "when in Rome" travelers, is "would you eat human" in a culture that offered it at restaurants? (assuming that no one's rights were violated in making the dish; e.g. all of the 'meat' came from victims of auto accidents, etc.).
Posted by: John at May 29, 2008 11:17:05 PM
Debating the consumption of horse meat is a senseless discussion. Westerners are instinctively repulsed by the idea of consuming a companion animals. For societies that don't treat those animals as companions. there is no such problem.
The only thing we can ask is that societies that choose to do this do so in a sustainable way that causes the minimal discomfort for the animal. One thing I can't abide is the abuse of a resource (farming / hunting to extinction) or unnecessary cruelty (slaughtering animals in some ritualistic or superstitious way that causes the animal's dying moments to be unnecessarily prolonged).
Posted by: Luke Burton at May 30, 2008 1:59:28 AM
@John - I've read that one of the reasons we are repulsed by cannibalism is actually because it's a positive survival trait. Eating your own species vastly increases the risk of picking up a communicable disease from your victim. Any bugs that live in your human flesh hamburger stand a much better chance of surviving the journey into your digestive tract and flourishing inside a human. Bugs that are adapted for life inside a cow might be quite deadly - but perish in our vastly different digestive tract.
Our bias against eating companion animals is probably linked to the same instinct. The closer we relate to some species, the less appetizing it looks.
Posted by: Luke Burton at May 30, 2008 2:08:03 AM
How about some anagrams of "horsemeat bazashi"?
Possible responses to "Tyler! It's an intelligent horse! You shouldn't eat that!"
Bah! She aromatizes!
Aah! Braize those, Ma!
Obi hazes a hamster
Zombies hate Sarah
And the winner for clarity and the Japanese-connection:
Her hit soba amazes! (horsemeat soba anyone?)
Posted by: Ars Magna at May 30, 2008 2:54:11 AM
I was a vegan for well over a decade until I spent a month in Japan. I can speak some Japanese, but can't read a lick, so I decided to go with the culture and simply eat what was put in front of me. The very first thing I ate was raw horse, and it was delicious.
I'm back to being vegan for health reasons (no matter how "healthy" the meat I eat is, it's nothing like the healthy I feel when I'm not consuming any animal products) but I'm not opposed to trying dog when I eventually make it to China. I agree with the earlier commenter and "When in Rome..."
What I really, really do not get are people who cry at the thought of eating dog but who eat, say, chicken. I've met some *really* smart and personable chickens (seriously). You shouldn't get to have your cake and eat it too.
Posted by: Marina Martin at May 30, 2008 4:00:06 AM
Horse tastes good. Is generally sold in Swiss stores, I will never be able to figure out just why you're supposed to eat cow but not horse. Either you eat animals or you don't, but eating one but not the other because it is "cruel to do so" is utterly hypocritical. I have not tried dog or cat (at least not knowingly) but morally I don't have an issue with it (except for maybe the point of it being pretty inefficient to eat predators but thats true for salmon, as well).
Posted by: Someone from the otherside at May 30, 2008 5:55:52 AM
I've eaten cat served to me by some Chinese friends who liked to see just what they could fool me into eating. They fed me sea cucumber, jellyfish, chicken's feet, beef tripe, snake, and as the grand finale, cat. In Canton, they said, cat and dog are eaten in the winter because it keeps you warm on the inside.
Up until they told me it was cat, I found it decent, but a little stringy and greasy, a lot like duck. The feeling of cultural horror was worse, but I can't honestly say that I wouldn't eat it again if I were "in Rome".
Posted by: Alex at May 30, 2008 7:42:00 AM
To quote the immortal Rodney Dangerfield as Al Czervik in Caddyshack,
“This steak still has marks from where the jockey was hitting it.”
Posted by: Dave Richardson at May 30, 2008 9:52:03 AM
"Westerners are instinctively repulsed by the idea of consuming a companion animals."
I am a Westerner. For a large part of my childhood, I had rabbits as pets. My favourite dish is rabbit ragu (on pappardelle). This implies either (1) that I am an outlier, or (2) that the above claim is wrong. My money is on (2). I think the correct statement would read "Sentimental individuals are repulsed by the idea of consuming companion animals."
Posted by: Johan at May 30, 2008 11:17:32 AM
"I've met some *really* smart and personable chickens (seriously)."
Ah, more evidence of the harmful effects of vegetarianism on the brain.
Posted by: Robert Speirs at May 30, 2008 11:29:51 AM
Growing up on a ranch enured me to all of this. Calves are cute when young, grow up, and are delicious at 18-24 months. I never thought about eating horses, but only because no one else did. I don't think I would have had an issue with it one way or the other.
I do remember my mom, who didn't grow up on a farm, almost killing my dad when he tried to get rid of an unwanted litter of kittens by putting them in a burlap bag and throwing them in the river.
I suppose it depends on your social context ... we loved our animals, but there was never any doubt that they were there to work then/or be eaten.
Posted by: mike at May 30, 2008 2:54:50 PM
The problem of getting communicable diseases from eating human flesh will be solved once we have vat-grown meat and USDA inspections.
Someone is going to do it. I predict it won't be in Japan (despite their notorious penchant for what we consider to be strange food) and it won't be in America (despite our incredibly broad cultural diversity and mind-numbing levels of decadence). My money is on China - although it will almost immediately be suppressed by the government.
Posted by: eddie at May 31, 2008 8:22:51 AM
The idea of the Japanese eating a wide range of food sort of falls down when you think about game meat. Japanese people barely even eat duck or venison, let alone rabbit, pheasant, partridge, grouse, etc (and i'm fairly sure all of these are native to Japan) -- and they're pretty shocked to hear that Europeans do.
Posted by: cee at May 31, 2008 9:06:23 AM
I've ridden horses all my life, and I feel a strong connection with them. In movies, I can watch a hundred people die in a battle scene without trouble, but I'm very disturbed to watch the death of a single horse. (However, I do value human life more than equine life as a general rule.)
So personally, I'm not sure that I'd opt to eat horse meat -- but I can't see any universal objection to doing so. Either it's okay to kill animals for human consumption or it's not -- and whether some members of that species are also good companion animals seems like nothing more than emotionalism.
As for chickens, I was acquainted with more than a few in my childhood, and all were the spawn of the devil -- except one.
Posted by: Diana Hsieh at May 31, 2008 4:15:30 PM
