SC - Rendered horse fat

[Philip & Susan Troy]

LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> 
> Could you post any info on the is subject  to me privately? Historically, the
> consuming of horese meat was very much frowned upon in main stream Europe
> during most of , if not all, of the Middle Ages and this aversion has survived
> in Anglo cultures all around the world to the present day. I have had a VERY
> difficult time finding any information dealing with this subject other than
> personal feelings, gut reactions, and other non-substantive sources. Thanks in
> advance for any help you can post.
> 
> Ras

Horsemeat has been eaten under various circumstances in Europe more or
less since the domestication of the horse.

It hasn't always been popular, but it is an ancient habit that persists
to the present day, so I'd be very hard put to believe it wasn't eaten
in period. Hey, _people_ were eaten in period Europe.

I believe the major source of a known aversion to horsemeat in the
English-speaking world, anyway, has to do with laws enacted by Norman
English rulers who happened to be, in theory, Christians. I make the
distinction because this is not even remotely one of those cases of
the-evil-Church-trying-to-run-everyone's-life (yawn), but more a
political thing enacted by secular authorities. I gather horse-eating is
associated with certain religious rituals of the pre-Christian
Anglo-Saxons, and prohibiting it by secular authority (in a culture
ruled by cavalry, more or less, mind you) was probably yet another
method of forcing the Saxons to become assimilated. Both Christianity
and Norman law, of course, spread more or less South to North in
England, of, which is perhaps why until at least the early years of this
century it was (and I have no evidence it isn't, still) a pejorative
term in England to refer to Yorkshiremen as "kicker-eaters", "kicker"
being a North Country term for horsemeat.

See James Frazer's "The Golden Bough" for more on this, as well as
Calvin W. Schwabe's "Unmentionable Cuisine"; I think there's something
about this in Tannahill's "Food in History", too. The Larousse
Gastronomique also tells about horse-eating, primarily the use of
horsemeat in various local specialty sausages (donkeys too!) in France
and Spain, as I recall.
  
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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