Horses for main courses...

As a student in Paris, I remember a friend hissing across the table that the tasty steak I was tucking into didn’t come from a cow – “it’s horse!” he said. “How else could the campus afford to put it on their refectory’s subsidised menu?”

The story went that, if the meat was called “steak” on the menu, it was probably horse. If it was beef, it would have been “steak de boeuf”.... Who knows? I’m afraid I haven’t thought much more about it until now – 30 years on.

In case you’re wondering, yes, I did finish my meal – it tasted fine to me!

The other story was that, if a restaurant or butcher sold horse then it would display a horseshoe over the entrance. I don’t think it’s that unusual.

The point is, there is nothing wrong with eating horse per se. It’s common practice in many countries.

But in the UK, though we eat deer without flinching, horse is as much a taboo as dog or cat...

What matters most in the current horsemeat scandal is the deceit. For it seems unlikely that the horses illicitly making their way into our long and tangled processed food chain are specially bred for their delicious meat.

So where do they come from?

One poor woman told the Sunday Times how she was duped into parting with two of her cherished pet horses – who subsequently ended up as meat somewhere. They had been previously treated with drugs that should make them unsuitable for human consumption. But their horse passports had been faked, and the drugs were not mentioned on the new documents.

While we all want cheap food when we can get it, we also want to know that what we are eating is good and honest.

It has been pointed out by many that sugary fizzy drinks are more of a risk to our health than a bit of horsemeat, and I’m sure that if we had a culture for eating horse, and our meals were labelled accordingly, we would happily tuck into it.

But, being poor doesn’t have to mean eating substandard food. Buying cheap but genuine cuts of meat and being more creative with pulses and vegetables can make eating economically a viable option for everyone.

We all have to remember that included in the price of our bargain processed meal is not just the price of the meat but also the cost of running the factory in which it was made, the wages for the staff who made it, the box it went into, the lorry that brought it to your supermarket – and a profit for both the shop and the manufacturer... If we are expecting quality meat in the process, we have to ask ourselves how that can ever be possible.

In my next blog I will pass on some of my money saving ideas for easy home cooked meals...