Horse meat

Horse meat is the culinary name for meat cut from a horse. It is a major meat in only a few countries, notably in Central Asia, but it forms a significant part of the culinary traditions of many others, from Europe to South America to Asia. The top eight countries consume about 4.7 million horses a year. For the majority of humanity's early existence, wild horses were hunted as a source of protein. It is slightly sweet, tender and low in fat.

Because of the role horses have played as companions and as workers, and ensuing concerns about the ethics of the horse slaughter process, it is a taboo food in some cultures, for example the Romani, whose culture contains a rich history of equine husbandry. These historical associations, as well as ritual and religion, led to the development of an aversion to the consumption of horse meat in some cultures. The horse is now given pet status by many in some parts of the Western world, particularly in the United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland, which further solidifies the taboo on eating its meat.

In the Paleolithic, wild horses formed an important source of food. In many parts of Europe, the consumption of horse meat continued throughout the Middle Ages until modern times, despite a papal ban of horse meat in 732. Horse meat was also eaten as part of Germanic pagan religious ceremonies in northern Europe, particularly ceremonies associated with the worship of Odin.

Horses originally developed on the North American Continent, and about 15,000 years ago migrated to other parts of the world. The largest fossil beds of horses is in Idaho at the Hagerman Fossil Beds, a national monument. The horses were about the size of a modern-day Arabian horse. The Europeans' horses that came over to the Americas with the Spaniards and followed by the settlers became feral, and were hunted by the indigenous Pehuenche people of what is now Chile and Argentina. At first, they hunted horses as they did other game, but later they began to raise them for meat and transport. The meat was, and still is, preserved by being sun-dried in the high Andes into a product known as charqui.

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