[county]

So tell me DB are the anti slaughter people " whining " when they state they don't like horse going to Mex.? etc. or is this one of your one way street deals?

[Laurierace]

Told ya!

[county]

LOL I didn't bring the subject up maybe people should try and state they only want to hear certain things or else move to another country that will show em!!!!! LOL

[Laurierace]

Kinda like Christmas though isn't it!

[county]

Not sure what you mean?

[Tamara in TN]

http://www.lrgaf.org/articles/vikings.htm

Enjoy (or not).

well....no real news there to any Catholic who has ever really has had any formal education in the Saints (or one who like me reads too much)

BUT horse meat eating societies which were part of the Warrior type resurrection society's that popped up all over Europe starting about 1850/1870 had as their center feasts for nobels and high born society of horse meat...

so Holy Father's decree or no...horse meat was by about 1850 either for the starving poor farmer/solider or the members of the "Warrior" societies...(kinda like Civil War re-enactors here who REALLY are too into it )

it never occured to the middle class kinda like today....even in the Remount service here in the USA in WWII horse who were condemend due to age or illness or injury were fed to the army kennel dogs...there were full slaughterhouses on "base" even then....

[msrobin]

The slaughtering of horses is sick and disgusting. Watching how they are killed is the worse thing you could ever witness. I have been and will continue to be against horse slaughter. There is no reason for it. No matter what anyone tells you.

[county]

Well thats certainly one opinion but I've witnessed slaughter of many species of livestock and done the slaughtering and beleive me its not close to the worst thing I've witnessed in my life. Of course I eat meat and understand to get meat animals have to be slaughtered. No reason for it? Well trhat depends on if you want to eat meat or not if you do then ya theres a reason for it.

[JSwan]

geez - now I'm sorry I posted in response to the OP. I just thought it was interesting. Whether or not it has any merit is more of a scholarly discussion. I've encountered few scholars on this BB.

[Woodland]

She is in the nursing home and I read to her often. As a Norwegian Anglican she will be fascinated by the the juxtaposition to make connection to produce the article.

While I think there could be some validity in cannon law(I will reference in the church library today) I think it's a stretch. Considering many horse meat eating countries are profoundly Roman Catholic this article takes some liberties in connecting the dots.

Remember the founding fathers at Jamestown brought the Church of England (now known as the Episcopal church) to their new country. As the Vatican and Roman Catholicism was resoundingly frowned upon at the inception of the original colonies. That time period also coincided with the reformation. Most founding fathers and many Presidents have been Episcopalian.

Hmmm...Theories are like opinions every one has them.

[Woodland]

The slaughtering of horses is sick and disgusting. Watching how they are killed is the worse thing you could ever witness. I have been and will continue to be against horse slaughter. There is no reason for it. No matter what anyone tells you.

Slaughtering of ANYTHING is sick and disgusting. But in the case of the lovely New York Strip I grilled last night - very tasty!!!

[darkmoonlady]

While I respect the article's author for an insteresting hypothesis, his idea is too far fetched. The real reasons behind the US being more anti horsemeat comes from two sources. One most of the people who founded our country were of English origin, which in England going back all the way to the Celts worshipped the horse as a part of their pantheon. Epona the horse goddess was a woman who sometimes took the form of a horse, therefore they were semi sacred. If you notice the white chalk horses in England that have been maintained for centuries this idea of not eating horses has also been carried down as a taboo.

Secondly when the US started using regular immunization on the population they did so using vaccines derived from horse serum. What this did essentially was make a good deal of the population allergic to horsemeat. Over time the use of horse serum for vaccines went the way of the dinosaurs but the public by then had sort of weaned themselves off of horsemeat and only a few people still bought it.

[vineyridge]

Here's another hypothesis.

Throughout Western history, up till the last three hundred years or so, horses were luxury items. Your ordinary always on the edge of starvation peasant couldn't afford a horse. If he owned livestock, he probably had oxen and weedy little cows, goats and sheep. So eating that category of animal is deeply ingrained in our society.

The upper classes had horses for riding to war and for hunting and for carriage driving, although once war chariots disappeared (and let us not forget that the Celts, who used war chariots, were all over Western Europe, including Belgium and France) and the Roman Empire decayed with their cavalry, carriages didn't reappear until about the 17th century--too uncomfortable to be practical and no good roads. So horses were used in war and in hunting. Most of the hunting was for high quality meat for the nobles' tables and used dogs to find and bay the quarry. Dogs were used in war, and they were used by the lower classes to pull carts and guard the flocks. They were also working animals.

But dogs are carnivores. The circle that became established in the West was for the nobles to slaughter their worn out horses for protein for their hunting dogs who produced protein for them and their retinues. The "little people" slaughtered what they raised for food; which is why we don't eat horse.

I've read that there was a Victorian moralizing movement to get humans to eat surplus horse because it was cheap, high quality, and readily available since the use of carriage horses had exploded down the economic levels. The movement caught on some places and didn't in others; and then the automobile put the carriage horses out of business. Perhaps the Warrior societies that Tamara talks about gave a cachet to horse meat and made it a luxury item in those societies where the campaign had made an impact.

Only talking about Western Europe here; don't have a clue about anywhere else.

In summary, our tradition is to feed horses to dogs; and that just seems "right" to me.

[Tamara in TN]

Here's another hypothesis.

Perhaps the Warrior societies that Tamara talks about gave a cachet to horse meat and made it a luxury item in those societies where the campaign had made an impact.

Only talking about Western Europe here; don't have a clue about anywhere else.
.

it was Fench/N Italian/German based mostly and came about from the renewed/new interest in the Egyptian artifacts....returned by Napoleon's folks...

there was some discussion if these W Europeans were'nt feeling "left out" by not having better "connections" to their own pasts...and formed these groups...

there were all kinda cool formations and rocks and paintings and such but even if we read "Beowulf"...the author mentions the ancient "bairns" whose purposes were long unknown...


and add to that the nasty Black Death and no mass printing presses there was a real dearth of historical data there for anyone except the clergy and nobility...and oral traditions...

so someone reads about the Viking horse feasts,decides it's cool (just as cool as any dang mummies) and off they go....now horsemeat is a luxury meal item...eaten only 4 times a year at the parties...

[Secretariat2]

I don't see the big deal in exporting horse meat we export many species of meat why is it fine for some and not another just because some people here don't like to eat it?

Some cultures like to eat people. What's the big deal? Just because "some people here don't like to eat" people. Some cultures like to eat dogs and think beating them slowly to death is just peachy. Why don't we export dogs? There are cultures who think all sorts of things are just fine - we don't. Why? Because we have deemed it unacceptable and wrong and that is our right as a free and democratic people. Thank heavens for that!

[twofatponies]

I may be mistaken but I think in Iceland it is normal to breed and ride fine horses, but to kill and eat the crappy ones. Maybe it's a Viking thing

[Tamara in TN]

I may be mistaken but I think in Iceland it is normal to breed and ride fine horses, but to kill and eat the crappy ones. Maybe it's a Viking thing

when I was more into gaited horses it was my understanding that the Icelander's would actually "swap" the colts they were going to eat with a neighbor as then there was no real attachment to them by the family...besides I've seen Icelandic sheep...I'd sooner have the horse

[county]

Why don't we eat people and export dogs for meat? Because its illegal, exporting horses for meat isn't. I have no idea why people get legal and illegal things mixed up.

[MistyBlue]

Why don't we eat people and export dogs for meat? Because its illegal, exporting horses for meat isn't. I have no idea why people get legal and illegal things mixed up.

Emotions.

[Calamber]

Cultural bias and emotions, not a considerable amount of thinking in any case. I think it was Friedrich Schiller who in one of his published studies on the Sublime Education of Man said something to the effect that in educating a human being that emotion and intellect should guide reason, as a rider uses the reins to guide a horse. Given his other writings that had enormous impact on this country in the latter 18th and through the 19th century in the US, his poetical works like "Ode To Joy" set to music by Ludwig von Beethoven, I would love to see that resurrected in our curriculums in secondary schools and universities. Would go a long way to help overcome the overemotionalism that colors many of our so called debates.