Horses For Main Courses

A Digital Postcard From The South Of France

We had failed to find any horsemeat near Bandol.

Hungry, but not to be dissuaded, we sought out a boucherie chevaline or specialist horse butcher 30km away near Hyères. My French wife Charlotte does not see the fuss over horsemeat but she humoured my equine quest despite today being her birthday. God bless you Charlotte.

Charlotte poised to translate my silly questions.

From Plough to Plate

Horse butcheries were once commonplace in France. The salad days of horse eating were after World War II when the tractor replaced the workhorse and these old nags were devoured with relish. However, from the 1980s, horsemeat fell from grace. In 2010, there were 1500 boucherie chevaline in France and by 2014 this number had declined to approximately 750. This is why I was all the more excited to find a boucherie chevaline and taste its rarified delights before the whole world becomes a discount supermarket chain.

A Horseflesh Renaissance

In 2013, it was discovered that many European readymade beef meals were in fact horsemeat. The horse meat scandal implied that sport horses may have entered the food supply chain, much to horror of the English speaking world. Interestingly, the scandal had the opposite effect in France, where the publicity—however bad—drove interest in the meat to boost sales.

Left: horse steak. Right: horse sausage.

Raw Dog McGraw

I often get flustered at the butcher. There’s always someone breathing down my neck and I either forget a few items or don’t have the time to peruse the wares. Not today. We let a few customers ahead of us, so that we could revel in the delights of horseflesh.

Never having bought horsemeat, we didn’t know what cuts to buy. However, watching a few old horse eaters at work really set our pace. Before I knew it, I was firing questions at local horseflesh connoisseurs via Charlotte’s exasperated translation.

‘My husband loves raw meat,’ said one lady at the head of the queue. The butcher took her meat and put it through the grinder. ‘The horsemeat here is excellent.’

Sold. Our first cut would be tartare de cheval. This is raw horsemeat very much in the style of steak tartare.

Our friendly butcher prepares Tartare de cheval.

We turned to the butcher for further help.

I was expecting hands the size of bunched bananas, hairy forearms, a white trilby hat and a belt slung with razor sharp knives and steel to sharpen them. What we got was an attractive brunette. I mentioned this to Charlotte.

‘That’s the sales assistant you idiot.’

The butcher stepped out from the cutting room. No white hat. But he was very friendly. We explained our situation. Dan is a Kiwi recently obsessed with horsemeat. It’s his first foray away from the safety of Anglo meats and he wants to get his nose wet sampling your finest cuts, bonus points if the old nag was a racer or a veteran of the Kentucky Derby, but we’ll settle for a broken down Clydesdale if that’s all you’ve got.

‘You don’t eat horsemeat in New Zealand?’

Upon receiving the negative reply, our butcher gave that particularly French shrug, a sort of whole body sag with the jut of the chin. To simplify matters, the butcher explained that horsemeat has the same cuts as beef. In other words, you can get a filet, faux-filet, rumsteck, entrecôte…

‘I have one client that eats the horse’s heart,’ said the butcher.

‘Really,’ I said. ‘How does he cook it?’

‘He doesn’t,’ Charlotte said in translation. ‘He eats it raw.’

We ended up with three cuts: tartare de cheval, mince for a horsemeat lasagne, and a few steaks for the BBQ. Our butcher would neither confirm nor deny whether any of our steaks had once graced the track.

The homemade sauce is added by hand to the tartare de cheval.

After some smooth talking, and a smile from Teddy, we were granted access to the meat locker.

Tartare de cheval or raw horsemeat in homemade sauce.

My Little Pony

Well, the proof is in the pudding. To really taste the meat, I thought it best to eat it raw as the French do. When in Rome. A bit like goat curry, all you really taste is the spices. They say horsemeat is sweeter than beef. All I could really taste was Worcestershire sauce, capers and the other non-distinguishable yet delicious components of the brown sauce.

Verdict: if you’re ever in France, opt for horsemeat. You’ll likely be supporting a local business, a dying trade and you can tell your mates you ate a horse.