The following article first appeared on Iceland Review Online, Jan. 23, 2009, and is reproduced with permission of the author.
On Cute and Ugly Meat
While studying in Germany a few years back one of my professors was thrilled to find out that I came from Iceland - an enjoyable trip to my North Atlantic isle still fresh in her memory.
Then her expression suddenly darkened as she recalled something unpleasant about her journey. "I find it horrible that you eat puffins," she told me. "Why?" I demanded. "Because they're so cute."
Right. Puffins are cute. I won't argue with that. But so are lambs. And have you ever seen piglets? Although piglets grow up to become fat and ugly, they're usually turned into bratwurst sausages before they get the chance. At least in Germany.
Calves aren't exactly ugly either but still they end up on our plates, as do the adorable little chickens. Bottom line: All animals most commonly eaten around the world are cute. We just rarely get to meet them face-to-face before we eat them.
But people are also squeamish about eating ugly animals. Monkfish is arguably the most ugly fish of the sea and for centuries Icelandic fishermen left in it peace simply because they figured a fish that ugly couldn't be especially tasty. Quite the opposite. Monkfish is probably the most delicious fish you'll ever taste.
Back to cute. A reader asked me whether it was true that the situation had become so bad in Iceland that we had begun eating horse. That was before Alexandra wrote her highly-informative Daily Life on the history of consumption of horse meat in Iceland. I laughed and wrote back that I had a freezer full of horse meat. Not because of the crisis, though - I have always eaten horse.
Judging by the responses from readers after Alexandra's column I've come to realize that some people find such practices shocking, disgusting even.
Why? I've already been through the "they're so cute" argument.
It's correct as Alexandra writes that when Icelanders converted to Christianity in 1000 AD, the pagan tradition of eating horse meat remained permitted. Permitted, yes, but frowned upon in an increasingly Christianized society.
Gradually eating horse became less of a pagan practice and more of something only practiced by the poor who couldn't afford eating other meat. For most people it was a measure of last resort, "You should rather eat your hound than horse," was the general take on the matter.
It's strange that a nation generally so poor, who harnessed every scrap of meat from their sheep, would not make better use of its livestock (or better use of its seafood for that matter). Horse is both nutritious and tasty, especially foal, which some find better than beef.
The only reason horse wasn't eaten openly and proudly was because of Christian propaganda and because it was considered a poor man's diet. Similarly as people wouldn't eat ptarmigan, which poor people would treat themselves to at Christmas while the rich ate lamb and later pork. Today, ptarmigan is a sought-after Christmas delicacy in Iceland.
When my boyfriend's grandmother, a commoner, married the heir of a fairly wealthy farm by their standard, quite a few eyebrows were raised. Horse was never eaten in the household of her in-laws - not until she introduced them to it.
"I couldn't eat those old and sinewy cows," she told me. "Horse is what I wanted and gradually the others came to crave it too. My father-in-law pretended he didn't, but in the end I think he also ate horse meat."
Even today, eating horse is frowned upon in Iceland. For some reason people have come to believe that it doesn't taste well. They should try it. It is much cheaper than beef and now, since the crisis hit, supermarkets are offering it for sale more openly. However, it is rare to find horse or foal on menus in restaurants.
I buy horse meat from a farmer who my in-laws know and can get us a fair deal, slaughtering horses at home. With steaks, mincemeat and goulash stocked up in the freezer, my boyfriend and I have enough red meat to last us through the winter - even until next fall.
Barbaric? I used to think so. I wouldn't eat the foals from the horse farm we had in my youth. Not in a million years would I have eaten Frosti. I was tricked into eating our horses and I never thought I would forgive my parents for it. How could they? They were our friends!
But then again, as a horse breeder my father had some tough choices to make. Not all foals had the qualities to become good riding horses. Not all of them could become stars of horse shows or generate profits. It is very expensive to feed a horse for 30+ years just for the sake of keeping it alive. I'm fairly certain that horses are slaughtered for such reasons all around the world. So why not eat them? Is it better to feed them to the dogs?
A reader commented that in the US people make a clear distinction between pets, work animals and animals bred for human consumption. Horses were used for pulling the plow, he said, but weren't bulls also used for that purpose? Didn't George Clooney have a pet pig? I wonder if he still ate pork.
In Iceland, lambs that lose their mothers or are rejected by them are called heimalningar. They are bottle-fed and are raised in close encounter with humans. They are like pets, behaving like dogs almost. Although it is heartbreaking for many a farmer's child, even heimalningar are slaughtered and eaten.
Such is the harsh reality of life. And if we're going to eat meat, isn't it better to know where the animals come from? Isn't it better to be aware of the fact that they have to die in order to be eaten? At least we know that they were treated well and killed in a humane way.
There is no way of telling where that faceless vacuum-packed meat in the supermarket came from. But at least it isn't cute anymore.