Re: CHAT Horsefeathers (was: Re: Sapir-WhorFreakiness)

Quoting Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>:

> Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> > That's not really parallel, tho; to be parallel, you'd have a situation
> > where
> > Americans do eat horse meat*...(schnip)
> > * Given a few of the things I've found horse meat in, and the frequency
> > with
> > which I pay much attention to the exact contents of meat products, I would
> > not
> > be particularly surprised to learn that millions of Americans do consume
> > horse
> > meat without being aware of it.
> >
> Quite likely. But since we don't routinely eat horse, how would we recognize
> the taste anyway??  I too read labels-- which are supposed to be truthful--
> with some care, and have never noticed overt reference to "horse", nor in
> disguise as cheval, Pferd, Equus caballus, "kuda-meat" etc. etc.
I should have been explicit - I normally _don't_ read labels. The fact that I've
seen that things have contained horse meat a few times when I've actually
checked suggests it's fairly common. Things might of course be different across
the Pond.

Horses are not normally considered food where I come from, but neither is it
taboo, and suggesting eating them does not tend to provoke the kneejerk
antipathy that suggesting eating, say, dog does.

One time I was surprised to find that a food contained horse was with the
Scouts; we we're eating hot dogs that one of the leaders had bought somewhere,
and I, for whatever reason, looked at the package, and so that they were made
of a mix of pork and horse meat (as well as the other things you prefer not to
think about when you eat cheap industrially produced sausages). I, of course,
made everyone aware of the fact. Most of the girls refused to eat any more of
it, but, IIRC, none of the boys or adults present where troubled by it.

                                                  Andreas

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