My Little Pony

Hose meat eh?? *munches on garden hose*

@satwnhetafangirl "Tastes like rubber ... with just a hint of faucet water."

@PaxRomana XDXDXDXD

There's HOSE meat in my cow? I know it was a typo, but still XD I was really confused for a second there

Found horsemeat in the flowers I ordered for Thanksgiving. Must be my little Peonies.

@FreyjaRN Flowers? How can meat end up in flowers?

@satwnhetafangirl Sorry. Puns in one language don't necessarily translate well into other languages.

@FreyjaRN um? Could you please maybe explain the joke here? I'm honestly very confused right now..

@satwnhetafangirl It's a word play on My Little Pony and a bouquet of peonies.

@FreyjaRN ohh okay

Humon...
You write "hose" once, and I'll assume it's a simple typo, and that you meant to write "horse" and just go on with my day.
You write "hose" twice... and I start seriously wondering if some wacko threw a rubber garden hose into the meat grinder and people ate it...

@Hinoron is the horse meat illegal in Canada?

@Golightly
Not at all (unless of course you're trying to pass it off as beef or something it's not).

Quebec, our largest province, is French descended and very proud of their "French" culture (though the actual French, in France, are not that impressed with Quebec "Frenchness", but that's another topic). Eating horses has been a French tradition for centuries, and there is therefore a significant market for horsemeat in Quebec.
It's not nearly as popular in the rest of the country, to the extent that only a few high-end butchers in major cities will provide it, the lack of demand making it unprofitable to keep in stock for most such businesses.

@Hinoron oh... thanx for the explanation , is it true that the horse meat is illegal because England thinks that horse as a pet? btw how is Prince Harry in Canada?

@Golightly

https://www.itv.com/news/2013-02-14/how-healthy-horsemeat-fell-out-of-flavour-in-the-uk/

Seems so. From about the 1930s onward, horses gradually became less a common work animal (pulling carts, transportation, etc) and more like "pets" for horse riding enthusiasts, sport equestrians, and other more finge-ish entertainment uses (as opposed to something you need to ride downtown to get your evening's groceries... we have cars for that now! ;) ). What's key here is that there are far FEWER horses needed in a country to keep aristocrats' snobby kids in riding lessons, than 100+ years ago when the horse was the normal means of transportation for everyone else.

When horses were abundant, (and even now that they aren't) they eventually die, and then you're left with 500lbs of meat lying on the ground. Considering how often Europe battled with famines, NOT butchering that very large animal's caucus would have been incredibly wasteful (even if they were never bred entirely for food, like pigs and cattle). In modern times, food is abundant in 1st World countries, and the only horses still around are the ones people train up as "pets" (or sport animals, whatever) which they put a lot of time and effort into training, maintaining, etc... A horse isn't just a 19th century "car" to them; they're much more emotionally attached (and they certainly don't NEED them as food anymore).

So, while horse meat may not be illegal, the attitude of most of the population towards horses in the modern era is that they're far too rare and valuable (and likeable) to eat. I don't think of dogs or cats as a potential food source... but then I've never been hungry enough to consider is seriously. :P

Prince Harry & Megan... man, I haven't heard a word out of them since Covid-19 started dominating the news half a year ago...
Let me see what I can dig up...

FEB-27: Canada has been providing RCMP officers for the Royal couple's security free of charge, but with them stepping away from their Royal duties, Canada announced that it will withdraw the officers (within a few weeks of giving notice). Looking after British royals while they visit is a courtesy we've always provided to our parent country's symbolic powerless figureheads (^_-) but if they're no longer royals, then they're just a young couple who is plenty wealthy enough to hire their own private security.

MARCH-27: Megan and Harry, who had seemed to settle in Vancouver (BC, Canada). Pulled up stakes and flew to Los Angeles (California, USA) which is Megan's home state. There was speculation that the Corona virus motivated the move... (although I'm not sure why. The USA hasn't handled the pandemic nearly so well, which I think was apparent even then.)
Megan's mother is around, and there's a new baby Archie whom they might want to spend time with his grandma, which would have been impossible after the border was sealed, so that probably had more to do with it. Supposedly they're buttoned up in a "secluded bunker" to avoid covid-19 even in the dropping-every-ball USA.
(Not sure how much credit I should give that article... it's pretty speculative).

...Aaaaand that's about it for recent mentions. Presumably they're still keeping isolated.

@Hinoron Thanx for the explanation and article, wow... horsemeat is much healthier than other red meats I tried the horsemeat once just for my curiosity, and I think... it tastes just like beef.

What?? catmeat & dogmeat... and then... that mice/ratmeat "gunea pig" oh... No...

Also thanx for the recent update of Meghan & Harry, that's very an interesting news, especially with the "secluded bunker"

@Golightly

Yes, I imagine horse meat IS healthier than cow meat; they tend to be both better fed and exercised. That it tastes like beef doesn't surprise me either; they're warm-blooded animals of nearly the same size.

...That is a very fancy plate and presentation for a dead rat (or so I'm assuming). O_o

Oh, one more thing: I'd started saying above that it was significant that there are much FEWER horses around now, but didn't really complete the thought. Even if there are much fewer, sport/pet purposed horses in a country, there still are SOME, and they still die eventually, leaving 200-400lbs of meat behind. It makes sense to sell the horse's corpse to a specialty butcher who can make use of the meat, and then provide it to the relatively few horsemeat enthusiasts who don't cringe at the thought of eating a horse. Think about it; what ELSE can you do with a 500lb dead animal? Bury it? You'd need a forklift... and a very big graveyard. I know in the USA, there are a small number of veterinary hospitals that have a crematorium large enough to cremate a horse... which costs the owner a big chunk of change, vs the butcher who will pay YOU a big chunk of change... but I guess that's what you have to do if selling horsemeat is illegal in a country where some people play dress up all day long like movie cowboys. (I mean, I guess if it makes them happy, God bless them, but I'd really like them to acknowledge that if I showed up for work dressed like Batman, it would be the exact same thing. :P )

@Hinoron That fancy dead rat is very popular in Peru, they called it "Cuy". And I don't have any curiousity to try it

Think about it; what
ELSE can you do with a
500lb dead animal?
Bury it? You'd need a
forklift... and a very
big graveyard. I know
in the USA, there are a
small number of
veterinary hospitals
that have a
crematorium large
enough to cremate a
horse... which costs
the owner a big chunk
of change, vs the
butcher who will pay
YOU a big chunk of
change...

Well... after thinking about it, hmmm... It's better if i buy a car with 769 horsepower(573 kW) like Ferrari, than the real horse that I don't know what to do with the body when they die so... I can't answear that question

if I
showed up for work
dressed like Batman,
it would be the exact
same thing. :P

I get that cowboys ride a horse, but... Batman don't have any horse and don't worry... you still can wear your Batman costum at work on Halloween and also rent a horse besides the Batmobile or maybe... are you the real Batman? Pssttt... I won't tell anyone

mmmmmm i love some good HOSE meat. who doesnt like a good mouthful of your garden hose?

I love me some garden hose meat!

I would also freak out if there was hose meat in my meat.

I don't want hose meat!

Oh I remember that scandal, it was an issue here in Germany too.
For some reason it had something to do with lasagna too? Everyone talked about horse lasagna.
Maybe that's where they first found traces of horse meat. I don't remember the details xP

@Kyasarin and in the netherlands there were horseburgers or something like that?

@TheDramon Recently where I live there was an issue with glass getting into lasagna.

Actually considering how expensive horse meat is, it's a cheap way to eat some, but it's still better to know what you eat.

@MagicRooster never eaten horse meat.

@VanessaLeskinen Me neither, but I would like to taste at least one time... or I already tasted it but didn't know, all those bad food with horse meat that where in cow food was about "all-made food" and don't have any taste except all the chemical things they put in it, it's definitely trash-food.

@VanessaLeskinen
It apparently tastes enough like cow that people can't tell the difference without a thorough investigation of the production process.

@MagicRooster Horse meat tastes better in my opinion as in actually having some flavour. I think it may be because horses actually *move*. Cows and pigs don't.

@Suominoita What do you mean cows don't move, you've seen a charging bull, haven't you? You mean, like they're not nomadic?

@Xordic More like a general behaviour. Sure, bulls can do some moves if they have a reason to. Most of the time they don't. Horses have need to move around a lot just because.

@MagicRooster
Considering that where it is eaten, horse meat is usually considered a delicacy and therefore comparably expensive meat, one probably should try not to think about where horse meat, which was cheap enough to make it financially worthwhile to dilute supermarket meat with it, originated from.

@Sisu
Ah, but they still have horses even in places where people DON'T like to eat horse meat, and horses still die even if they're not farmed specifically to become food.

If the cow rancher's horse dies, what is he to do with it? Bury it? Burn it?
...Or sell it as an extra 500kg of product? He's got the butchering equipment suitable for an animal the size of a cow right there.