Horse meat: history of food prejudice

Our food choices are neither free nor arbitrary.

Each town has resolved its nutritional needs by adapting to the resources of the ecosystem it inhabits.

But food is not just a physiological issue: it is a complex system of sociocultural beliefs that conditions what the table shows.

Therefore, to understand the low consumption of horse meat in Spain we have to delve into this cultural imaginary forged over the centuries.

In the Paleolithic, men chased wild herds of horses.

They were hunted and represented, but their domestication was complicated due to the animal's own character and the enormous expense involved in feeding it (a horse eats 30% more grass than a ruminant).

Strong, noble and energetic, horses were therefore relegated to agricultural tasks since the first and populous civilizations of Asia and the Middle East.

The horse and the plow formed a perfect symbiosis.

But raising a couple of horses as a draft or transport animal made sense, raising large numbers did not.

Except in the Asian steppes, endless grassy plains where nomadic shepherds like the Scythians survived on mare meat and milk.

The Greek historian Herodotus, in the 5th century BC, recounts the way of life of this “barbarian” (foreign) people that the classical world considered uncivilized due to their detachment from agriculture, the basis of the diet of Classical Greece and Rome. .

The

fact of practicing ritual anthropophagy also intervened in the disdain for him

, says Massimo Montanari in the book

History of Food .

However, both Greeks and Romans began to import horses from their nomadic neighbors to adapt them to their own needs.

In the last years of the Roman Empire it was said that the Mongols survived long journeys by sucking the blood of their horses and that the Huns rode before walking, so the hosts that threatened Rome's border with the Danube were feared.

In no Roman banquet, where you could taste a flamingo or a bear, was there ever a horse.

Horses in the Port de la Bonaigua, in the Vall d'Aràn.Antonio Ron

For the Hebrew people, the horse, a non-ruminant animal with uncloven hooves, is impure and not suitable for human consumption according to

kosher

dietary standards.

For the Muslims who crossed all of Asia Minor to reach the future Al-Andalus on the backs of light and agile horses, the fatty meat of a lamb or a goat was preferable to that of such a useful and appreciated animal.

As Marvin Harris, American anthropologist, creator of cultural materialism, and author of

Good to Eat

,

writes, “Empires literally rose and fell on the backs of horses: horses bred for their speed, nerve, and steadfastness in the heat of battle, not for meat and milk that they could offer.”

And so, a long network of taboos was woven around this animal that was resistant to domestication and difficult to milk, despite the fact that its milk is very sugary and has great nutritional properties.

However, much more pragmatic reasons underlie this rejection of horses as food.

Harris explains that

The taboos that linked the horse to pagan and nomadic peoples persisted beyond the ancient civilizations based on the cultivation of cereals and had their peak during the early Middle Ages, a time when Christianity defended itself against Islam thanks to a war machine consisting of a knight armed with heavy armor on the back of a strong and robust horse.

The very basis of feudalism is “a military contract for the provision of heavy cavalry.”

Foal meat, from the Calixtó hotel. Antonio Ron

Today, Europe is divided between hippophagi or lovers of horse meat, such as Germany, where there are establishments dedicated solely to it, the so-called

pferdemetzgereien

, Poland, France and Italy, to a lesser extent, or those that reject it completely, like the UK.

In Spain its consumption is residual, and occurs mainly in the communities of Navarra - where Burguete mares are highly appreciated -, Castilla y León and Catalonia.

In the Catalan community, specifically, the reproduction, sale and distribution of the Cavall Català del Pirineu

breed has been promoted since 2007

through an agreement between the Generalitat of Catalonia and the University of Barcelona that defines the characteristics of this breed that It extends through the regions of La Cerdanya, El Ripollés, Alta Ribagorça, Pallars, Alt Urgell and Vall d'Aràn.

L'Associació de criers d'eugues de muntanya del Pirineu

,

for its part, tries to promote the consumption of organic meat, with much less cholesterol than beef and more Omega3, in addition to protecting and disseminating the horse culture in Catalonia with events as traditional as the

Fira del cavall de Puigcerdà

, in the heart of Cerdanya, or the

Tria de mulats d'Espinavell

, in Ripollés.

Marisa Buxeda, breeder of the Cavall del Pirineu breed in the town of Molló. Antonio Ron

Every October,

the escamots d'eugues

(groups of mares and stallions) come down from the mountain where they have remained during the months of summer transhumance to select the best specimens.

Marisa Buxeda, breeder of the

Cavall del Pirineu

breed in the town of Molló, in Girona, explains that the use of these communal lands where her animals and those of the Conflent ranchers graze dates back to the times of the

Tractat del Pirineus

(1659). .

She tells us about the work of

l'eugasser , the shepherd who stayed with

l'escamot

all summer

in the mountains, but, above all, about her passion for this animal that she defines as the perfect mirror: “A horse, when He looks at you, he knows what you're feeling.

The bond is very special."

She herself recommends going to eat Pyrenean foal at the Calixtó Hotel Restaurant where you can try this unique product, rooted in history and territory, repudiated and loved in equal parts, but always an image and symbol of strength and bravery.

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