But perhaps the reader, having eaten German beef, has a not ill-grounded suspicion that horse-flesh might bear honourable comparison with such meat, and yet be at best of mediocre savour. Let us, therefore, says a writer in the Saturday Review, cite the example of Parisian banquets, where the convives were men accustomed to the Trois Frères, Philippe’s, and the Café de Paris. M. Renault, the director of the great Veterinary College at Alfort, had a horse brought to him with an incurable paralysis of the hinder extremities. It was killed, and three days afterwards, on the 1st December, 1855, eleven guests were invited—physicians, journalists, veterinary surgeons, and employés of the government. Side by side were dishes prepared by the same cook, in precisely the same manner, and with the same pieces taken respectively from this horse and from an ox of good quality. The bouillon of beef was flanked by a bouillon of horse, the bouilli of beef by a bouilli of horse, the fillet of roast beef by a fillet of roast horse; and a comparison was to be made of their qualities. Dr. Amédée Latour thus writes:—
‘Bouillon de cheval.—Surprise générale! C’est parfait, c’est excellent, c’est nourri, c’est corse, c’est aromatique, c’est riche de goût.
‘Le bouillon de bœuf est bon, mais comparativement inférieur, moins accentué de goût, moins parfumé, moins résistant de sapidité.’
The jury unanimously pronounced the horse bouillon superior to that of the ox. The bouilli, on the contrary, they thought inferior to that of good beef, although superior to ordinary beef, and certainly superior to all cow-beef. The roast fillet, again, they found superior to that of the ox; and M. Latour thus sums up the experiment:—
Un bouillon supérieur;
Un bouilli bon et très-mangeable;
Un rôti exquis.
Similar experiments have been subsequently tried, several times in Paris and in the provinces. They have been tried under three different conditions. First, the guests have known what they were going to eat; secondly, they have been totally ignorant; and thirdly, they have been warned that they were going to eat something quite novel. Yet in every case, we are told, the result has been the same. It is right to add, that the author anticipates the objection that the animals selected were young horses in splendid condition, and that such horses are too valuable to be sent to the butcher. The majority of these experiments have, we are assured, been made at veterinary colleges, upon horses incapacitated by age or accident from further work. The horse which M. Renault served up to his friends had already vingt-trois ans de bons et loyaux services. He was in good ‘condition’—that is to say, well-fleshed, although paralysed. In fact, all the horses, it is asserted, were such as are sold for fifteen or twenty francs—not such as are the pride of our stables. The younger the horse, the better his flesh; and as young horses die daily from accidents, these, we presume, would form the ‘prime cuts.’ But old horses, used up, unfit even for cabs, if allowed a little rest, are capable, we are assured, of furnishing beef better than cow-beef. But this serving up of horse-flesh is equalled by that of the maître de cuisine to the Maréchal Strezzi, who, at the siege of Leith, according to Monsieur Beaujeu, ‘made out of the hind quarter of one salted horse forty-five couverts, that the English and Scottish officers and nobility who had the honour to dine with the Monseigneur, upon the rendition, could not tell what the devil any one of them were made upon at all.’ M. St. Hilaire discusses at great length many other objections, with which we need not here trouble ourselves. But the taste is spreading and the advocates increasing. The public use of horse-flesh as human food is spoken of approvingly in Blackwood.
The New York Tribune thus endorses the fanatical idea of the French savans, (more properly ravens,) as to the propriety of eating horse-flesh:—
‘In the horse we have an animal which is much cleaner in its habits than the hog, herbivorous like the ox or sheep, whose flesh is rich in nitrogen, and as pleasant to the taste as that of either of the above-named animals. What prevents horse-flesh from being found on our tables? Nothing but a popular prejudice, which recent investigations in Paris show is entirely without any foundation whatever.
‘8,000 horses die, it is said, in New York annually, or about 22 per day’ (a great exaggeration no doubt); ‘but instead of fetching 17 or 18 dollars to press the carcase for grease, and to feed the hogs on to make pork for export, the prices will be greatly enhanced for meat for home consumption.’
Thus writes the Paris correspondent of the Indépendance Belge:—‘You know what interest is attached to-day—and very naturally so—to all questions relating to the public food. In connexion therewith, I have to mention a fact which is both curious and odd; it is, that there is being formed in Paris a society of economists, naturalists, and hardy gourmands, having for aim the introduction of horse-flesh into the category of butchers’ meat. It may perhaps be said, that this social phenomenon is not altogether new. Ten years ago, hippophagy made some noise in Germany, and, if I remember right, a society of eaters of the horse was formed, and attempted a public festival, at which all the meat should be of that quadruped, but were interrupted by the public, who, feeling their prejudices wounded, broke the tables to pieces. At Paris, where all eccentricities are found, and even encouraged, there is nothing of that kind to fear. Accordingly, hippophagy progresses. Do not consider this an exaggeration. The last number of the Revue des Cours Publics will prove to you, by means of a summary, that M. Geoffroy de St. Hilaire has made the subject the theme of one of his recent lectures, and that the learned professor was greatly applauded. I should add that his auditors included economists, agriculturists, and heads of benevolent institutions. When the orator concluded by saying that the day was come when the horse ought to contribute to the nourishment of the human race, as well as the ox, the sheep, and the pig, a hundred voices cried in chorus, ‘Oui! oui! très bien!’ This question, strange at first sight, has been raised, and it will not sleep again. I predict that it will have not only numerous adherents, but eloquent fanatics. As a commencement, many of the auditors wished to eat horse soup, horse steaks, and the same flesh under other forms.’ At the time at which I write, dissertations are made, brochures written, the regulations of a hippophagic society drawn up, and the establishment of horse shambles demanded. In 1832, M. Alphonse Karr, mocking the extreme zeal of the society for protection, exclaimed—‘Philanthropists! the horse has carried man long enough; it is now for man to carry the horse!’