Awwww...they’re all upset about
eating horse meat
by
Robert LaFrance
The European
Union – formerly the European Common Market and the European Economic Community
– is in a tizzy these days because some of the ‘beef’ that made its way to
Ireland, France, and many other countries was found to be mostly horse meat
rather than the hamburger, etc. which it was labelled.
In a world where
people eat cats, dogs, groundhogs (terra-pork?), many other exotic meats – even
roadkill – is it that serious a thing that some delicate palettes object to the
devouring of Trigger and Northern Dancer when they were expecting Ronald the
Bull? Farley Mowat ate mice when he was doing research for the book ‘Never Cry
Wolf’, so can horse meat be so bad?
I have eaten
horse meat and it didn’t have any ill effects other than my wanting to leap
over guardrails. When I lived in Vancouver in the early 1970s, one restaurant
in Burnaby advertised horse meat steak on its menu. Of course I had to try it out.
It was surprisingly good, so good that I went back the next week and tried it
again. That was it though, because a steak was three dollars or more and I was
saving my money for a ticket to Australia.
Last week the
news story hit the airwaves like a meteor exploding over Russia and everyone
was outraged that their delicate taste buds may have been subjected to horse
meat. One Irish lady, who sounded as if she had just won a Guinness stout
drinking contest, said it was “fore and aft the worst beef I ever et. Although
my husband Gerald thought it was the cat’s meow.” I hope she made sure the cat
was still there in her house before she said that.
“Fraud on a
massive scale” was how the European newspapers described the situation. Several
countries supplying the EU meat markets had for many years evidently been
selling hamburgers that were as much as 40% horse meat, which is much cheaper.
Organized crime has branched out, it seems.
All this reminds
me of a story my grandfather Muff LaFrance (1881-1976), legendary wit of
Tilley, used to tell me. He said that once he went to a restaurant and ordered
a steak. The waitress asked if he wanted it rare and he said he guessed so.
When she brought it, he suggested she ‘take it back and give it another rare’.
On the steak’s third trip to his table he chewed, chewed and chewed some more.
He summoned the waitress. “I’m not saying this steak is tough, but I was just
noticing that the old horse that used to be in that pasture next door is not
there any more.”
*****************************
Someday I may
write a column entitled: “It seemed like a good idea at the time”.
There are so many
things we deal with today that are of such poor design and so poorly thought
out that their inventors or instigators should be sent in a rocket to Syria.
Remember when (1985) Coca-Cola, after about a century of selling their main
product – coincidentally named Coca-Cola – abruptly changed the formula? That
lasted about a month during which Coca-Cola lost about 20% of their sales. Then
they went back to the Coke that people loved, but for a time called it Coke
Classic. I understand that the executives who authorized the formula changing
were drawn and quartered, then horsewhipped and put in a blender turned on
‘high’ for a month. Then the company got tough.
Another example:
In 2011 my first wife and I bought a new car and one of that car’s features was
something that prevents it from spinning on slippery or snowy roads. Right off
the bat, this sounds like a good idea, but what happens is that when there are
a few inches of snow on the road coming up to our estate, the car spins for a
second, then the engine goes down to an idle to stop the spinning.
Contrary to what
the designer might have thought, a car trying to make its way up a snowy hill
should not go down to an idle. True, the car would normally spin, but it would
at least continue going forward. What happens with ours is that it simply slows
down and then comes to a stop since it’s not spinning its way forward.
Brilliant!
Remember the
treatment given to those Coke executives? This car company’s executives should
undergo that treatment – twice. A few days ago I tried to get this car up our
driveway and it got two-thirds of the way up, and then I tried it with our 2000
Chrysler Intrepid. It spun its way up to our house without any problem, but if
it hadn’t been allowed to spin it wouldn’t have made it either.
I read somewhere:
“There’s a kind a cleverness that cuts its own throat.” Amen.
-end-
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