News

[quinara]

Well, the Pope's resigning. I don't have much to say about that, though I like the idea forwarded on the telly this morning that the new Pope might be from somewhere other than Europe. I think that would be nice for a lot of Catholics around the world.

In other news, though, I can't get over what has become known as the 'horsemeat scandal'! For those who haven't seen this particular bit of British/European news, they recently found that some (value) beef ready meals/things have contained horsemeat rather than proper beef and, the more they dig into it, the more there seems to have been some serious organised fraud happening in a pan-European supply chain - the latest victim is Tesco's spag bol.

I just can't help but feel like this is one of the definitive stories of our times. There's so much bound up in it - how expensive meat is (becoming again? has always been?) that fraud is worthwhile, how cheap we want/need our food, how meat-heavy we want our diets to be (despite all that), and yet how picky we are about what animals+cuts we eat - even when they're processed beyond our ability to discern any difference. Because, presumably, if we just ate horses our pockets would be the ones benefitting, rather than the fraudsters... But we never will.

Basically, I feel like beef is the new bread when you come to food history; it's the site of all our anxieties. Which amuses me.

Comments

[beer_good_foamy]

Is it wrong that my immediate reaction to this has been "Well, clearly horse meat is better than it usually gets credit for?"

I like your point about meat as a cornerstone. It's interesting - we don't often think about this, but really, all our complex societies, trade agreements, turf wars, technological advances, philosophical and religious and political debates ultimately come down to keeping our bellies full. And right now, a lot of us* in a certain part of the world insist on doing it with high-grade beef. Increasingly so, even.

* And I include myself in that.

Clearly the good people at Doublemeat Palace were onto something.

[quinara]

Ha! Not at all - I've been thinking along the same lines, only I've got, 'I always thought beef tasted of nothing but grey once you process/cook it too much'.

And absolutely. I tend to agree completely with everyone who says our consumption of meat isn't sustainable (even and especially as a meat eater who likes their steak just about warmed up from raw) - because it's completely irrational how much offal and dodgy cuts we turn up our noses at these days, yet still want cheap meat everywhere and in everything.

Hmm... Maybe I should eat more offal. *wants haggis*

[beer_good_foamy]

Hmm... Maybe I should eat more offal.

And that's why the good lord invented sausages. :) Mmmmm... haggis. (And completely agreed: a steak should barely even remember what the frying pan looks like, let alone how it feels.)

Not to mention how odd it is that people look at the ingredients on some £1 packet of ready-made food and are shocked to find out what cut the "6% meat" comes from (and picks it over the one with 5% meat, as if it made a difference) and don't care what the other 94% are. It's very rarely actual tomatoes.

...but cows taste good, damnit.

[stultiloquentia]

Oh, god, did you hear anything about America's "pink slime" flap last year? Some bonehead journalist learnt that school cafeterias were feeding their kids ground meat that used, I don't even remember the details, more of the cow than the sirloin -- not even offal, just scraps, iirc -- and went into a factory and got a silly photo of the stuff sitting in its vat, looking, god forbid, pink and slimy. Everybody was so shocked and horrified that they drove the company right out of business. Conclusion: Americans are even worse than Brits.

I know I've seen really fun posts on cooking offal floating around DW. I've been meaning to visit the local butcher and see what I can do with a heart.

[zellieh]

I'm with you on the pickiness. It makes no sense that I can buy lamb everywhere, but never mutton. I might like mutton! I may never be able to find out, though, because I have no idea where you can actually buy any in Britain today. One of those expensive boutique butchers, no doubt, and only organic mutton from some rare heritage breed of sheep.

(It amuses me that ye olde peasant meats like pigs trotters, offal, mutton, and rabbit, squirrel, and hare are now only available from the most expensive butchers and game merchants.)

If we're going to have a meat and dairy industry, we should respect the animals enough to at least eat all of them, rather than throwing all sorts of animals and animal parts away.