What, you may be wondering, do all of the above have in common? Well, it turns out that they are all made with horse meat.
I have been shaking my head over the extensive coverage of the horse meat in beef products ‘scandal’ and wondering what, perzackly, the fuss is all about. I ate kazy, shuzhuk and karta, (all types of horse meat sausage,) while I was in Kazakhstan, where horse meat is very popular, as well as horse meat steaks, stews, casseroles and pasties, and very tasty they were too – even if I did find out, after ingesting it, that karta is, in fact, made from the upper rectum of the horse…hey, it’s all meat and after some of the things I had to eat in China, horse rectum only reaches about a 2.5 on the e-e-e-ewmometer. Let’s face it, a horse is just a cow that can run fast…
There is a serious point to criticism of the coverage of the ‘scandal,’ or perhaps I mean to the reaction to the coverage. First of all, the media use the wrong word to describe what has happened – the beef burgers, lasagna and whatnot are not ‘contaminated,’ the ingredients are ‘adulterated.’ It is entirely legal to sell and consume horse meat in the United Kingdom, but it is not legal to mis-label goods for sale.
Secondly, Findus, et all are the victims here, not the perpetrators. The perpetrators of any offence are the companies who supplied the adulterated product.
A simple solution therefore presents itself. The French were quick to ban imports of British Beef – payback time… ban all beef and beef product imports from lee continong until it can be demonstrated that such products are unadulterated.
Seemples.
PS. I see Findus are changing the name of the dish to ‘Spaghetti Bollogneighs…’
Boadicea's Chariot 
Yes, I think adulterated is a better description, Bravo.
Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t eat horse from choice, I find it as repugnant as eating cats or dogs.
Have you ever seen cows performing dressage or jumping fences?
There also seems to be an element of concern that said horses have been routinely dosed with “bute” which is most certainly not something I would care to eat.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21383362
Cat, dog, civet, et the lot – plus a lot of other things that are probably better not mentioned, although the very worst has to be sea cucumber…
PS. Rat…
This is totally gruesome, Bravo.
http://www.culinaryschools.org/cuisine/10-disgusting-delicacies/
Well, sheep’s head, check, that mongolian thingie, similar, and plenty of unidentified slimy things that grub along the seafloor…
Wavy Davy will not be happy with you upsetting Les Grenouilles
Bravo, I think the meedja used ‘contaminated’ because their average reader thinks ‘adulterated’ means ‘a bit on the side’. 🙂
The latest seems to be that the whole thing is mafia-driven from Italy and Poland where there are obviously more old nags than young young fillies – but we already knew that, innit?
Oops, too many youngs. 🙂
Bravo: I once told a Cantonese acquaintance about Prince Philip’s (praise and eternal life be upon him)
quote “if it has four legs and is not a chair, has wings and is not an aeroplane, or swims and is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it”. He laughed and said that Prince Philip (blessed be his name) was more correct than not.
Apparently the Romanian government recently extended the ban on horses and carts using main roads. Therefore there were a lot of redundant nags for sale.
Whilst I agree with your posting, I have a gross exception to the fraud that the misrepresentation enables.
Whilst Findus may well have been the victim so to speak I am sure they were getting it cheap to have given the contract in the first place. Did they not wonder at the price? Don’t tell me they didn’t suspect, they didn’t want to know what it was.
As usual it is a case of caveat emptor. If people are so stupid, lazy and too poor to buy and make real food then they must expect to be poisoned. Maybe there is an element of Darwinism at work here!
Well over thirty years a go I bought a premade chicken curry in Tesco, so called up market one. Thought it ate weirdly, texture was wrong, washed off a piece of so called chicken and dissected it and looked at it through a magnifying glass. It was extruded with weird holes in it, reckoned it was soy or worse.
End of!
Never bought anything ready made again.
Gave up fish and chips because the anatomy of said fish never conformed with the anatomy of the species purported to be sold!
It is very easy when you set your mind to it to make extra large batches when you are cooking and freeze down portions for when you can’t be bothered to cook.
I appreciate that they eat all sorts of disgusting things in third world rat holes, trouble is we are not quite supposed to have slipped that far! (YET!)
I do hope some enterprising soul sues the arse off some of the retailers for misrepresentation.
As for banning imports, you have to be joking, A against the EU rules and B British politicians protecting indigenous citizens? Rather leads me to believe that you have consumed too much horses arse causing delusions! More likely the politicians are desperately trying to divest themselves of their own shares in the lucrative scam!
If you really want to know what you are eating only buy whole fish and fowl and large pieces of other meats and cut them up yourself! I frequently buy a whole rib of beef, it is quite impossible to mistake cow for horse at that size of joint. plus the colour is different plus plus it is a damned sight cheaper.
(And then grow your own veg!)
I have been playing a bit of a game, as yet I haven’t bought a single veg since last March, am still harvesting carrots, leeks, brussels, chard, broccoli, potatoes and red cabbage from the ground, besides what is in the freezer. I confess to buying onions and garlic as I cannot grow enough of them. I’d rather eat the odd grub than chemically bathed perfect veg! I reckon the money saved actually defrays my red wine bill for the week, splendid!
Must go and prune more roses!
I was awaiting your comment with some anticipation, Christina 🙂 ALl of that is fine, if that is, you have the time and inclination, and the space, for all of that. I think there is a lot of nonsense talked about food and nutrition and chemicals. Everything we eat is composed of, oh, guess what, ‘chemicals.’ Arsenic occurs naturally in apples, nicotine in potatoes, etc, etc.
I am not suggesting that we should not be careful, or fail to regulate, exactly what we use to treat our food, but I do point out that preservatives and what have you in bread, milk and other foods mean that more people have affordable access to ‘fresh’ foods than ever before.
It is also the case that ‘processed’ foods mean that more people have access – if they want it – to a more varied and better balanced diet at affordable prices.
Lastly, there is nothing wrong with ‘pink slime.’ If we can use the food we produce more efficiently, and get the most we can out of each microgram, again, it contributes to better nutrition for all. I think back to my childhood. Left-overs were a fact of life and every bone that went out of my Nanna’s kitchen was clean and shiny. What is the difference between an individual ‘processing’ the last scrap of meat from a carcass – roast on Sunday, cold on Monday, pie on Tuesday, stew on Wednesday, Thursday and maybe Friday, and a factory doing the same thing and presenting it as a reasonably appetising product?
So, there is an upside, I would suggest.
Pink slime IS the bone crushed! Thanks but no thanks!
I note that far more people have gut trouble these days than previously. IBS etc . I reckon that both corn syrup and corn oils etc are responsible for a lot of trouble. An awful lot of food additives are not recovered naturally from the original foodstuff, they need chemicals to solute out the components and then remove the chemicals. I suspect that the processes are none too accurate.
Having inherited my father’s notorious guts I have to avoid a huge list of these additives otherwise I am rolling round in agony in the lower bowels for days, it is vastly unamusing. I’m not allergic truly but I am reactive. If I avoid all processed food and packet grub I never have a moments trouble! Unfortunately with so many restaurants buying in processed food most of them are out of bounds too. Since the great gall stones incident I have just learnt to smile sweetly, pass by on the other side and never ever eat anything off a buffet or carry in supper etc. Pain is a great teacher of restraint.
I never diet but have lost 40lbs just like that in the last three years. I fit clothes I bought 25 years ago! I would have lost a lot more but for my ability to consume red wine in quantity!
I was only tipped into this by the gall stones, but I suggest anyone who has any problems with digestion could do well to emulate the ‘diet’ No package grub, all fresh natural products only, and as near as poss organic and cut down on starches in any shape or form.
I suspect that you bravo have guts like a Gladstone Bag and can eat anything without it upsetting you, 2nd husband was like that, others of us have not got your tolerance!
The great advantage being that one has resumed a marginally youthful silhouette until you see the crevasses on the face!
‘Guts like a Gladstone bag..’ 😀
I would hazard a guess that circumstance might have something to do with that. Childhood in a working-class household in the 50’s and 60’s meant that my culinary experience was on the lines of the weekly menu in my No 12. Then I joined the Army – nothing wrong with Army food, btw, Army rations are procured to higher standards than their civilian equivalent – when it became a case of eat what is in front of you now because you can never be sure when your next chance will come.
For the last 15 years I have followed some dietary rules which seem to work quite well as far as my BMR is concerned:
Limit meat to 2 main courses a week
2 fish, 2 chicken a week
Fresh veg ad libitum
Cheese as a treat, not staple
Ditto fried food
My diet. What’s in the cupboard? Eat that.
PS. Plus 5 kilometres on the road – sans car or bicycle, natch – every morning, which I am working back towards after the success of the laser angioplasty. Pain-free locomotion for the first time in about three years, woohoo!
What’s your BMR, Bravo? Mine’s inside the ‘normal’ range. 🙂
No idea, Janus. I usually measure weight and resting heart rate. With no serious exercise for too long, I am carrying a medium size spare tyre and my rhr has drifted out from ‘good’ to ‘average.’ Ask me again in six months 🙂
Dammit fellas you’re still alive and kicking what more do you want?
I suppose I am too but sometimes wish one wasn’t! (Re gall stones!)
What seriously pisses me off is that gall stones come in three varieties, and I have the variety that nothing one does or eats affects them in any way whatsoever. They manufacture themselves in the liver on a deus ex machina basis and there is sod all one can do except have them fished out at intervals every few years.
Most people have them once, have it fixed and live happily ever after. I consider it totally iniquitous that they do not dissolve in red wine!! I consider this world to be of very poor design one could have done better on the back of an envelope!
Ooh, Christina, you have my sympathy. Never, touch wood, suffered from that particular ailment, but I have a trick kidney – well, actually, the connection from left kidney to bladder. Where most people have one pipe, I have two, and a ‘Y’ junction. i am told that this causes some sort of whirlpool at the junction and some sort of back flow, or something, predisposing me towards kidney stones. Fortunately, after the first, agonising incident. lo. these many years ago, I can manage by increasing the fluid intake to ridiculous proportions when the first symptoms appear. You really do have my sympathy.
Mutual! I find that constant pain for months on end as they are brewing makes one so irascible it isn’t true. I have dropped out of several organisations as I just could no longer trust myself not to tell them their fortunes or, even worse, tear them a new arsehole!
Not having abandoned all restraint, far better to remove oneself whilst one still can!!!
Interesting about the kidney thing, to increase fluids dramatically, a tip worth noting and filing! ( I suppose red wine doesn’t count? No, I didn’t think so either!)
Christina, when talking to me after the first incidence the doc said ‘fluids.’ Which fluids were not specified – mind, it was an Army doc 🙂