I have had horse meat on several occasions in Europe. It's easily found in the Benelux and France, though generally on the decline.
not sure how old these numbers are:
Today, horse meat remains popular in Europe and Japan–not just as a delicacy–but as a staple. It is consumed in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, Iceland, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malta, Mongolia, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. In Sweden, it outsells mutton and lamb combined. Italy consumes more horse meat than any other country in the European Community. --
http://amillionhorses.com/horsemeat.htm
google: boucherie chevaline
purveyor:
http://www.equinox.be/Horse Meat Almost Delicacy in Parts of Starving Europe
By Lawrence N Eldred
Chicago, Ill (AP)
The Milwaukee Journal - May 19, 1946
Canned and cured horse meat production has risen so fast this year to meet export demand from Europe that trade spokesmen said Saturday Fido's traditional food supply may soon be threatened in this country.
Horses were butchered for pet food over here -- except when some demand developed among housewives during the meat scarcity in the war years -- but horseflesh is a food source for human beings in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, rating virtually as a delicacy in some areas, one authority said.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 47,1222804The article then describes the sources of horses for pet food and human consumption as well as the locations of slaughter & processing facilities in the USA and Canada. It mentions some 2.5 tons of canned & cured horsemeat.
The name for it is "horse meat" or "horseflesh". I'm not sure what having a synonym like "pork" has to do with something's eat-ability. We don't really call chicken anything else do we? If it had a face and a heartbeat it's probably meat to someone, and that means rabbits, horses, goats, guinea pigs and so on.
My assumption is that some tradition of eating horse existed here in the USA, as necessity and as preference amongst immigrants and that this was eventually reduced as beef, pork and poultry production took the lead. Generally it seems that horse was seen as a lesser or inferior meat and only used during the wars as army rations and domestic beef substitutes. Some interesting food anthropology to be done.
The winter of 1916 saw a major shortage of flour. It was replaced by dried, ground-up turnips which produced unappetising, diarrhoea-inducing bread. At this time, the staple food of the British soldier was
pea-soup with horse-meat chunks.
http://www.military-history.org/article ... h-food.htm
Clearly some people are opposed to eating horse, but if there's a broad cultural aversion in the USA I think it's based on a misapprehension of either quality or flavor. It's foreign or an odd concept because it's not available here any more.
