horsing around

Never mind the helicopter that crashed onto a busy road near Vauxhall Station this morning, the fireball causing two deaths and a rush-hour chaos that was remarkable even for London, the hot topic on the news was frozen hamburger patties containing up to 30% horsemeat.

The meat was produced in Ireland, but that's not the story. The connection that I made to the thousands of abandoned horses that apparently roam the Emerald Isle is erroneous. It is true that back when the Celtic Tiger was roaring and everyone rode the property bubble to everlasting prosperity, a stallion was just the thing to put onto a newly constructed, expansive estate in the countryside. When the bubble popped and the economy readjusted, the horses, suddenly prohibitively expensive to keep, were let free. Those with comprehensive health logs were slaughtered but not for the domestic market because, as has been quoted in every news bit on this, "it's not in [Irish] culture to eat horsemeat".

I believe that the producer of the burger patties acted in good faith and procured and processed meat it believed to be beef. But, and here's the story, it supplied grocery chains that compete primarily on price and was under immense price pressure itself. By the logic of discount retailing, cheap is good, no matter what it is exactly that is cheap. Globalized supply chains obscure most unappetizing details, and the meat mincer does the rest.

But wait, the power of science comes to the rescue. Investigators with the Irish Food Standards Agency PCRed up a selection of beef burger products. Of the 27 samples, 10 contained horse DNA. Twenty-three contained pig DNA, uniting Jews and Muslims in outrage.

Now you might say that you don't mind eating horse, that it's no different than eating cow or lamb or pig or a cute little bunny. I agree with that, but the point remains the same. You're better served with expensive meat whose origin can be traced. Ask your butcher for horse if you want horse. Don't buy cheap because you don't know what you will get.

Case in point is a recent story on This American Life about imitation calamari. Think about this for a minute. Where could this go? Even better, download the episode and listen to it while having breakfast. Can't wait? Well, here goes it: The story is about hog rectum allegedly sliced up, deep-fried and sold as calamari on a grand scale. It's a bit of a wild-goose chase because the end product remains elusive. But the morale of the story stands strong: Eat meat you know, from an animal you know if you have the chance, or don't eat meat at all.