It’s a tiny kitchen, in the back of the butcher’s shop. While butcher Geert Vermeire indicates some pieces of meat, the Brussels star chef Christophe Hardiquest bakes a few steaks. Sucking soft meat, of which only the sweet undertone betrays that this is not an ordinary beef steak, but a steak from the horse. Vermeire then serves us the delicate smoked meat that we know as the horse version of the filet d’anvers . Smoked for seven to eight hours on beech wood, dried for eight months. The meat melts on the tongue.
Vermeire represents a dying profession, that of horse butcher. In the Netherlands there is still a few: the last horse butcher in the north of the Netherlands, Slagerij Van Dijk on Damsterdiep in Groningen, closed its doors in December 2020. In Belgium there are only three, one of which is in Brussels.
Geert Vermeire saw the number decline rapidly. “In America, the sale of horse meat has stopped, mainly due to pressure from activists. I’ve had death threats myself. Even in France, where chevaline once very popular, it is rapidly declining. The beautiful horse with its shiny skin and fluttering mane does well on TV, but the reality is different: there are many discarded horses walking around. They have served man, but are superfluous. You can send them to a retirement home, which happens a lot, but I think more circular. The horse can also serve as food. At a time when food, and good meat, is becoming increasingly scarce, that is a good solution.”
“Horse used to be the food of the poor, nowadays it is a more luxurious product. In that respect, we go back to the period in the second half of the nineteenth century in Paris, when the ban on the slaughter and sale of horse meat was lifted in order to feed the poor population”.
Most controlled
Horses are not just eligible for slaughter. ,,Sport horses may not be slaughtered, because – especially in the smaller races – doping is sometimes used and antibiotics are used. All this must be in the animal’s passport. In the unlikely event that you lose that passport, you will also lose your horse. Horse is the most controlled meat in the world, there is no way to cheat. And the advantage: hobby horses are well maintained and have a good life.”
There are indeed breeding horses, bred for slaughter. “Italy, where a lot of horse meat is eaten, has a breeding program with Canada. There, horses are slaughtered after eighteen months, but I think that’s too young. And Eastern European horses don’t always deliver the best meat.”
Fat is the magic word in slaughter. ,,The horses from the Netherlands each get a vet code, my buyer selects on that basis. The fatter the better, because fat gives flavor. Haflingers and Fjord horses from the pony farms are very suitable, and I like Danish horses, but there are too few of them. We don’t use real thoroughbred horses, the fleece of which is very strong.”
It should be clear: Vermeire is proud of horse meat. “It is healthy meat, without junk. As meat, it is also beautiful because the fat contains zero – mind you, zero – percent cholesterol. The taste is fantastic, a little sweeter than beef.”’ Our empty plates confirm his statement.
Horse on the map
A number of restaurants deliberately put horse or pony meat on the menu. In Brussels, Christophe Hardiquest works in Menssa with Geert Vermeire’s meat, just like Dick Miny from Brigittines. In Leeuwarden, Willem Schaafsma of organic restaurant Eindeloos is a strong advocate.
“I have been serving the meat in my restaurant for years. I once walked into the cold store at butcher Menno Hoekstra in Dokkum, there was a pony that had already been slaughtered. I didn’t even realize it was a pony, thought it was a cow. One with very nice meat, finely marbled loin. I bought half a back and started playing around with the meat in my kitchen. The next day I immediately asked if I could also buy the other half. Now I buy a horse or pony once or twice a year if my butcher has it available.”
A few years ago, Schaafsma presented the meat of three Welsh ponies at a festival in Friesland. Public reactions were mixed. “Some turned away in disgust, I even received death threats. On the other hand, the meat was quickly used up, because many people really liked it.”
Schaafsma is clear about the negative reactions. “The consumer is quite naive. Many ponies, especially Shetlanders, are waste of our affluent society. People buy a pony for their teenage daughter, but once that daughter has grown up, it is thrown away, because the maintenance of such an animal is quite expensive. So what happens to those animals? They disappear into the gray circuit of meat traders. I prefer to be open: it’s beautiful meat. Most animals have roamed around in meadows, fed with grass and hay. That should sound like music to the ears of the sustainable consumer of meat. Sustainable meat, from grass-fed ponies and horses with nice fat.”
Schaafsma points to the past. “Fifty years ago, horse meat was the most normal thing in the world. Also in our regions, where horses were widely used in agriculture in the middle of the last century. That changed when the animals were all exchanged for tractors. In a relatively short time, the culture has changed so much that we find eating horse meat strange.”
Spicy or peppered
For a layman, horse meat is difficult to distinguish from beef. Especially if it is served in a restaurant with sauces and attachments. Horse meat is redder than beef and spoils faster. This is due to the higher iron content. You can prepare a horse steak in the same way as beef steak, but because horse meat is rather lean, it is better to heat it longer and at a lower temperature. Otherwise it will be tough. Because the muscle tissue has a higher content of glycogen – stored glucose and carbohydrates, which can be found in your muscles – the taste is sweeter than beef. Partly because of this, the meat can be slightly more seasoned or peppered during preparation.
Horse fat varies in color from yellow to orange and is very soft, almost runny in consistency. Due to the tenderness of the meat, most of the hindquarter can be eaten as steak. In addition, horse meat is processed into minced horse meat and smoked horse meat, among other things. Famous in Belgium is the Lokerse horse sausage, a bratwurst served with tomato sauce.
Safe meat
Horse meat that we buy in the store, and of which the origin is known, is very safe meat. The animals are not really bred for meat, so the chance of the presence of leftover antibiotics or other substances is virtually nil. Moreover: where other animals for slaughter could have been infected with swine or avian flu, Q fever or BSE in the past, no real equine diseases are known yet.
In the Netherlands and Belgium, around 1990, between 1.5 and 2 kilos of horse meat was still eaten, which has now fallen to about half a kilo. In the middle of the last century, every city had one or more horse butchers, who had to have a separate butcher’s diploma for horse. The Netherlands now imports the most horse meat from South America, which is often processed into soup dumplings or snacks such as frikandellen or croquettes. Usually without the consumer noticing.
The meat of Dutch ponies and horses is usually exported to countries that appreciate the good quality of the meat. In Limburg, a lot of zoervleisch is made from horse meat, just like the stew that we eat with Flemish chips.