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HORSE. For the last five thousand years, the horse has of been of greater human interest for its strength than as a source of meat. The domestication of the horse is considered to have taken place in the present-day Ukraine in the fourth millennium B.C.E., and the practice spread from there. Prior to that, wild horses had been caught for food and seem to have been eaten by most peoples that adopted them during the first three thousand years of their domestication, though other, work-oriented kinds of use were more important.

The people of ancient Greece and Rome despised horse eating, although it was still practiced among the Germanic peoples and Asian nomads at that time. The Asian nomads also made a common use of mare's milk and "koumiss"; in fact, fermented mare's milk has been an important foodstuff in the steppes of Central Asia and is still a common drink there, and is also known in Scandinavia and the former Soviet Republics. Boeuf tartar is believed to originate from Asian Nomads, who preferred horsemeat to beef and therefore many think that this dish was originally made from horsemeat. Horsemeat is still an important food in Mongolia and Japan. The Japanese like to use it in their famous teriyaki. Horses are bred for food in many places in Asia, as in Mongolia, Central Asia, and Japan.

The dietary restrictions of Jews, Muslims, and most Hindus do not allow horsemeat in the diet. The practice of sacrificing horses and in some cases consuming their meat has been widespread in Europe and South Asia from the beginning of their domestication. It was part of pagan Germanic ceremonies and its importance in pagan religion is probably the reason why it was despised by Christians. Horsemeat is the only foodstuff that Christianity has abolished from the diet for religious reasons. Canon law forbade the eating of horses, and most of the Christian societies in Europe adopted that ban. This ban was for the most part abolished in first half of the nineteenth century in the Christian countries of Europe. Now horsemeat is eaten in most of the European countries, and in France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, and Iceland horses are bred for food production, although horse has not yet become a considerable part of the diet in any of these countries. The French and Flemish consume the most horsemeat in Europe, but the highest rate of consumption has amounted to only about five percent of that of beef. In the last decades of twentieth century the consumption of horsemeat dropped. One reason was that meat was cheaper when it was a byproduct of raising horses for uses that machines have mostly taken over now. Another reason is the increased opposition to eating horsemeat by animal rights activists. Activists in the United Kingdom have fought against eating horsemeat for decades, and in America the campaign against horse slaughtering for food is also prominent. Some American Indians are traditionally horse eaters, but the average consumption in the United States is low, although horsemeat is readily available. French immigrants make up a considerable part of the horse eaters. In many places in the Americas, as in the United States (the leading producer of horsemeat), Argentina, and Canada, horses are bred for their meat but it is mostly exported.

Horsemeat is darker red than beef and venison. Raw horsemeat is also more fibrous, and if kept for a while, it becomes rapidly black in color. It is more than 50 percent lower in fat and energy than beef, but of comparable nutritional value. After slaughter, foals and horses up to about two years old are usually chopped and prepared in ways similar to cattle and served as various kinds of steaks and goulashes, although special recipes for horsemeat are rare in the cookbooks of the Western world. The meat is easy to digest and the taste generally falls somewhere between beef and venison but a bit sweeter than either. Meat of older horses is commonly salted, smoked, or made into sausages. It can be very difficult to distinguish foal meat and beef, if it is spiced the right way. Hence in many places measures have been taken to prevent selling of horsemeat as beef. Older horses tend to be fatter, and horsefat is yellowish in color and not considered good in taste. The horsefat gets quickly rancid if not properly conserved, and horsemeat deteriorates more rapidly than beef. The fat, when melted, becomes oillike, and has been used for bread baking in northern Europe.

See also Asia, Central; Cattle; China; Dairy Products; Goat; Japan; Mammals; Meat; Pig; Taboos.

Hallgerdur Gísladóttir