Last night we went to a friends for dinner and we had filetto di cavallo courtesy of Columbus Meat Market. Chevaline in French, horse meat in English. Clearly the marketers need to take a play from the book of goat or squid marketers and re-brand the product in a foreign tongue, just as cabrillo or calamari sounds better in a foreign tongue, filetto di cavallo sounds beautiful.
Not until doing some reading this morning did I recognize how taboo horse consumption is. It’s basically unavailable in the US and UK, with the bulk of the worlds consumption being in Italy and France, two nations whose eating habits I hold in high esteem. A Frenchman won’t eat something that tastes bad. In fact I follow a personal mantra that if the French or Italians eat something, I do too. (Add Cantonese if you want to do the doctoral program in adventurous eating.)
The meat was lean and dense. We chose to prepare it as simply as possible, to get the full equine flavour to lose our virginity with. Oil, salt and pepper were all the meat was garnished with. A quick sear in a very hot pan with some butter as the cooking medium and we were ready to eat. We wanted to keep it rare, and luckily the stove cranked enough heat to get a nice crust with only 90 seconds a side cooking.
It was phenomenal. It was so good that it renders overpriced beef fillet obsolete. Tender and flavourful, if you weren’t told it was horse you’d be easily convinced it was beef, or venison perhaps. Sweet well aged beefy flavour, it was delicious. Get to Columbus Meat Market NOW. We drank a Napa zin blend, The Prisoner with it. Who the hell knows what the appropriate wine with a Derby winner is however, bourbon probably. Zinfandel isn’t a bad choice however.
Next stop on the taboo foodstuff express, seal heart sashimi, just like our kick ass GG.
A quick note on the title of this post, I think it’s lame, but my wife and three of my dearest friends all claimed it was brilliant, and I had to use it. They’re all inveterate gamblers however, so your mileage may vary.
~KT
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Out of curiosity, how much was it?
I ate some horse in Panama last year and thought it was delicious.
I’m an idiot. Didn’t look at the picture properly.
I had horse sashimi (basashi) in Tokyo. They serve you wasabi and soy dipping sauce like regular sushi. We drank beer with it. It was yummy.
I grew up eating cured horse meat on sandwiches. It is a delicious meat that is lean and tender and better for you than beef I am told. We served it at Aurora a few times. One day I got a call from a lady who was a member of the ubc equestrian society telling me that she loved my restaurant but wouldn’t come back again because we served horse. Oh well.
I remember telling a woman at the office about having delicious horse steak one time. She was so revolted – she refused to speak to me for the rest of the day.
Screw her – more horse for me.
you can also ask for horse sashimi at Miko’s on Robson St. very tasty stuff.
They serve horse at a couple of Vietnamese restaurants in town – Lu Quan on Victoria Dr serves it sauteed and grilled.
Regardless of its wonderment, I would rather stand down the non seal eating and foie protesters any day than deal with the lady’s and gentlemen of the equestrian world, really not worth the economic woes that these folk can wreak on your establishment. This coming from a guy who would eat any Delicious protein but picks battles he can survive let alone win.
I suspect that’s why horse is generally limited to ethnic outlets.
Horse is all over the menus in Toronto. We had horse there at a small french restaurant about two years ago!! Most of it comes from Quebec. Very tasty! We also had ostrich and elk on the same mixed grill plate. All were delicious!
I bet it would pair nicely with apples, or maybe carrots…
i dont question the tastiness of horse meat however being an owner of 3 horses it is hard to think of consiming one as meat. I saw a documentary on the underground production of horse meat and how it is killed/processed and it was quite shocking. Doed anywhere in BC legally process horse meat or is this a shady uninspected import?