Probably the fugu for the flavor since you seemed to like that one best. Don't know that I could mentally handle even fake horse meat or maggot poop flavoring, so those are a Nope.
Definitely the Fugu, that Simpsons episode fascinated me. Almost the immediately a Pop chips advert played talking about their exciting new flavours and it was too timely not to be funny.
Fugu! I'm fairly sure we ate horsemeat whilst in france on a school trip as the meat was quote dark and we couldn't identify the flavour... Very intrigued by Fugu!
I still laugh at the memory of a conversation with an ltalian friend here in New Zealand. I had been to Sardegna and had heard about Casu Marzu but, was NEVER going to eat maggoty cheese, no matter how special it was or how good they say it tastes. He said he'd eaten some as a child in ltaly. When l asked him what it was like he shrugged and said, "it was OK", paused and added completely deadpan, " l only cried a little bit".
Having actually had fugu in Osaka in 2019, 90% of the enjoyment of fugu sashimi is its texture. It has a bouncy almost rubbery texture but it's still fairly easy to chew, and it's almost translucent. You dip it in a special soy sauce that they prepare just for fugu and it's incredibly good.
I love how you give everything a chance - not just with these horrible sounding chips, but with everything you cook as well. It’s actually funny, too, as I can almost see your nose curling up when something doesn’t seem too appetizing, but you give everything a fair chance. Good job, Max. Love this site. Keep up the good work!
I saw this video and thought, "That reminds me of something that Josh did on Mythical Kitchen recently." Then I looked up illegal chips. Mythical Chef Josh sent Max his illegal food. This crossover is literally more ambitious than No Way Home.
We have dedicated horse butchers in germany and you can get steaks, sausage and everything. It is quite good actually and the meat is very clean, since horses have pretty much a spotless veterinary health record and a happy life as opposed to cattle.
I lived in Germany for half a year and I remember the day walking down the street with the other students and asking "What's 'Pferdemetzgerei?'" Wait, HORSE?
@@gobnaitaine5103 It's really dark meat, leaner and much more savory than beef. In Finland you'll typically find horse as deli meats, smoked and pretty salty which hides the flavour unfortunately, but it's a lot like reindeer/ game. And it's the main ingredient in a type of salami. But it's quite rare to find horse steak or roast, much less the more mundane parts.
My great grandma had us sing "the old grey mare ain't what she used to be" at her funeral. What a crazy woman, and I never expected anyone else to actually know that song.
Strangely, I know that song form somewhere in my childhood. Nut o have no idea where from... I'm in Ireland, btw. Your great grandmother sounded amazing. Definitely my kind of lady 😆
I know it's unrelated, but I couldn't help but think: "I mean, you wouldn't eat a tank..." "But Earl's crazy though. He ate one of my cars once. Yep, the whole car. Like with a fork."
3:30 - "It's so weird that they can make a chip that tastes like meat." I said the same thing a couple months ago. Local big-brand grocery store has their in-house brand of potato chips, and one of the flavours they offered recently is Baby Back Rib. I took a bite, stopped for a sec, and looked in the bag for pork bones, because good gosh almighty, that was a disturbingly porky tasting chip. There was smoke, there was spice, there was *actual pork* taste. Not bacon, either, but like, *ribs,* as the bag said. SO WEIRD but actually quite good.
Years ago, my friend and I tried fried chicken flavored potato chips. Worst snack food I’ve ever tasted, like old grease and fatty chicken skin. 🤢 I’d go for the ribs chips if I could still eat nightshades, though! 😋
Pringles had a Hamburger flavor a couple of years ago and I picked up a can on a whim when I saw it at the store... It actually had a surprisingly accurate flavor profile.
A friend of mine bought a "Thanksgiving Meal" set of Jones Soda bottles. The corn on the cob soda tasted exactly like corn on the cob. I think it's literal sorcery.
My dad who’s in his 70’s said when he was young a store offered an amazing deal on steaks and his mom bought some steaks and they ate them and they said they were amazing some of the best steaks they’ve ever eaten and then a few weeks later it turned out that they were selling horse meat and got in big trouble
Fugu isn't illegal in the US, it can just only be served by sushi chefs who have been certified in Japan of which there are only a handful in this country. There is a restaurant called Shiki in Seattle that imports live fugu during the fugu season every year. Honestly, I didn't find it particular yummy compared to other sushi but it was worth the novelty.
@@drawmaster77 Allegedly fugu tastes like a mild lightly sweet whitefish but (If safely prepared) has a mild numbing tingling in the mouth a few seconds later. Think of the flavor of chinese peppercorn very diluted, I was told.
This is quite possibly the most clever sponsorship I've ever seen. I think since you mentioned that texture is so important, it might be cool for them to make like, a beef or pork flavored chip so you can more easily compare the horse meat. Plus, to some people beef/pork actually is an illegal flavor, at least in spirit. Personally I'd love to try a mixed bag if they make one, especially one that contains related flavors. "Spectrum of Shrimp!" "Cornucopia of Cattle!" "Various Doneness Levels of Chicken, from Raw to Ash."
When I lived in northeast China, I found that they refused to eat dogs, and the theory was that dogs had too important a role in Manchu culture as herding animals. They were considered above food animals. I’ve always thought horses were the same for us-Black Beauty, Black Stallion, and so on. So the story about the bans against horse meat were very interesting-I never knew it was a law. I still wonder if the cultural value of horses influenced some of those laws.
It's not banned, so much as it's not allowed to be inspected for public consumption. This means it can't be sold to the public. However individuals could raise and butcher and eat their own, as long as they don't sell it. The other issue with eating horse, is that some of the medications we give them, could cause us issues when consuming them. I think this is point used to keep them from being inspected for public consumption, along with the idea that many put them in the strictly 'pet' category. Personally while I love my horse dearly and would not choose to eat her, I would have no issue with eating one that was raised for consumption and humanly put down. Just as I eat fish and chicken without a second thought, but would not want to eat any of my pet fish or even the chickens I used to keep. Once I name an animal it becomes too much of a pet for me.
It’s an inherited conceit from the harder to Christianise European countries....the ones which had relatively more ingrained Heathen traditions such as the UK. (Horse was a Sacred Meat eaten at Observances like an Odinnfing) Those kingdom which were more easily Christianised like France never had to be browbeaten with claims their eating of horse was an ‘unclean pagan practice’ because they were already showing up in church. When European traditions differ along an axis....America tends toward the English way.
I can tell you that, here in Australia, there definitely is a culture around horses. Less of a culture, in fact, more of a cult. They nostalgise the horse as this symbol of frontiersman-ship and freedom (yeah, we have a lot of those sorts of assholes here too; they're not unique to America) and anything to do with horses gets eulogised and wrapped up in this passion. To the point where we have feral horses (i.e. totally wild, nothing at all to do with humans) wreaking havoc on the ecosystem, overgrazing and trampling sensitive alpine grasslands and streams, causing huge erosion problems and driving native animals to extinction, and we literally can't do anything about it, because some guy in a hat rode one into the countryside once, some other guy wrote a ballad about it, and now they're untouchable. Even the mere suggestion of wanting to do anything about it (rounding them up, culling them) is enough to bring these cowboy (well, Akubra) hat-wearing assholes out to picket in front of Parliament, so you can imagine there'd be hell to pay if you dared suggest eating them.
Regarding the horsemeat taboo in the US: Max mentions that the taboo died out in Europe in the 19th century. At that time in the US, Aus, etc. horses were a KEY part of economic activity in those countries (cowboys for example) so utility effectively extending the taboo makes some sense. The continuation is probably related to the horse seamlessly moving from a very important utility animal to a pet of sorts since the rise of mechanization.
For what it's worth the horse meat trade was an outgrowth of their use: carriage horses would be retired to the butcher's and come out as the usual (e.g. hoof glue) as well as meat, no sense in wasting that. Obviously in the 20th century with the advent of food safety this became a bit of an issue as the stuff administered to "work horses" is not necessarily considered suitable or safe for human consumption.
I mean, i get your explanation, but it's not like all those other countries didn't used horses for productivity endeavors aswell. In Brazillian Northeast for example, Donkeys were big means of transportation and work but some people still eat it (was never so much much of a common practice, but still...)
But it makes even more sense to eat horse meat when you have so many horses, so you get at least a few meals of them when they're too old or hurt; the same way that today most "beef" is in fact old dairy cows...
I have eaten ( many times) Casu Marzu and horse meat, as I live in Sardinia…both are delicious and the Casu is most definitely sharper than Stilton ..a lot sharper. Horse meat is common and is at times prescribed by doctors for the high iron content. Love your show!
Sometimes, and there is also plenty of "normal" food that was def a dare at some point. "Omg, we let the milk go bad! Like, really bad. Hmmm, what if I just ate it..."
@@WillKrause21 Maybe that first person to experiment was like me. For some odd reason, I can't smell rotten milk. In all other ways, my sense of smell is normal. I've accidentally drunk milk chunky. Sometimes it tastes like melted sour cream, and other times moderately bitter. It never caused me any gastric distress. My GF does call me a goblin for my strong stomach though.
I've had horse and fugu sashimi on multiple occasions and really enjoyed them both! Casu marzu has always been on my bucket list so let's hope we all get to travel again soon.
casu marzu honestly feels like something that is specifically only “gross” to americans and most europeans. most people eat some kind of insect fairly regularly. beyond that, it’s just really really funky pecorino
@@choicebarrelscrotes2732 Yeah but if you think about it there isn't a lot of crossover between big cheese-making/eating regions and insect eating regions. Cheese is mostly a north american and european thing, with little cheese-making tradition in south america, africa, and asia. Well, of scale anyway, there is obviously plenty of cottage style simple cheeses, especially among most groups that survive through animal husbandry of large mammals. At the same time, Entomophagy is big...in south america, africa, and asia. The countries I think are closest to sharing those two foods are gonna be in Latin America. Mexico I know appreciates both, and the other two nations that probably come closest are Argentina (Highest cheese consumption outside of EU and anglosphere, but I am unsure if they have a history of Entomophagy) and Brazil (Which I know DOES have some Entomophagy but I also am not sure how big they are on cheese. Wait, cattle ranching is huge, so they should be? Are there any uniquely Brazilian styles of cheese?). Anyway, I thought that was kinda interesting. It even has a very simple reason: Cheese-making regions tend to be cooler for obvious reasons, you need a certain climate for it, and regions that have a strong tradition of Entomophagy tend to be warmer for a couple of reasons that would be even MORE off-topic to go into. You can obviously enjoy cheese in the heat and eat bugs in the arctic if you care to, but climate plays a big role into what type of cuisine becomes a big deal to different cultures.
The larvae are literally popping up all over the cheese while you eat it, and you absolutely will eat mouthfuls of the little buggers, so it's definitely reserved for the most determined of cheese lovers.
I’ve had Fugu soup and you’re right about the sweetness. It was amazingly delicious, well worth the risk if death. 💀💀😵🤕 All kidding aside, death are highly uncommon with a professional chef. Great video as always Max.
Yea, risk of death is like getting struck by lightning with professional chefs, most of them use a handful of well known species. Most deaths are the result of hobbyists who catch and prepare their own fish. They misidentify fugu and prepare them wrong, different fugu have different edible parts, with some being completely inedible.
@@ferretyluv I understand your concern. Recently 345 people have gotten sick, 3 died as a result of eating tainted cantaloupes…the most basic fruit. Eating fugu once or twice in a lifetime….ill take those odds.
Coming from someone who can get ground horsemeat from the nearby grocery store: the chips seem to be spot on on the horsemeat, as it really does taste like a less-gamey version of venison. Horse is very low-fat afterall, so the meat goes well in any dish where you'd want to have a low-fat piece of meat. Ps. eating horse isn't too common here (Finland) except as a partial ingredient to some salami-like sausages (most people eating the sausage might not even know there is horse in there), but it does not have as strong a negative connotation as it has in many other countries.
personally i don't get the problem with horse meat. Though would like to try it. Because as you described it and as others have described it. it sounds like an interesting thing to try.
Am Canadian, also can get horse meat here, though it's not common. (Mostly enjoyed by the elderly/French. I was introduced to it by my grand mother) Agree that the description is spot on. I also think horse meat has a slight sweetness to it, but maybe that's just me! Ironically I've heard that a LOT of the horse meat sold here comes from the US. No idea how true that is but kinda funny considering it's illegal over there
Hi, actually a native of Sardinia here! From your reaction to the Casu Carzu chips i'm pretty confident that a lot of the falvour has been "lost in translation". I can assure you that it's way stronger than Stilton! ahahah Anyway, cool video as always! p.s. Lots of Sardinians dislike Casu Marzu, but it's kinda traditional so it's still made for those crazy enough to eat it and enjoy it.
Funny how a lot of 'traditional foods' are not actually popular in their native places (hákarl and lutefisk being BIG ones where I am from). Now theyre just something old folks and adventurous tourists try
When I was in college one of my biology professors used to do research on the California newt, which secretes tetrodotoxin in its skin to protect itself from predators. He was very fond of telling us about the time a previous student dared him to kiss a newt he caught in the creek near the university, which everyone thought was hilarious up until he needed to be taken to the ER and put on a ventilator until he could breathe on his own again! He never mentioned what the newt tasted like though
The irony of executing that starving Frenchman when fairly recently Stoffers France got in trouble for their lasagne for the UK market being full of horse meat.
Max's wild side is finally shining through 👏😂 Also, omg, we're so close to 1 million subs! I'm so happy to have seen you grown so much, Max! Been here since the beginning; love your chill energy, and how you manage to school me, and many others, in a simple way 🥰💖😊
Max starts talking about the Casa Marzu and I immediately start eyeing my cheese omelet suspiciously. Also, thanks for that brief moment of panic when I thought today was Tuesday, lol.
Yes! I looked at the calendar earlier like "What day is it, Tuesday?... No, it's Monday" and then I opened RUclips and saw this video and was like "wait is it ACTUALLY Tuesday? It can't be Tuesday? It's Monday, it's not Tuesday. Is it Tuesday???" (also, Tuesday doesn't look like a real word to me anymore, yay semantic satiation)
According to "The Serpent and the Rainbow", the taste of fugu is kinda beside the point. The poison is the point. Get too much, you die. Get too little, you get way overpriced sushi. Get the right amount, you get ... high. Ish.
@@513regichan yeah, no. the poison is a neurotoxin and it affects the taste buds wildly which really transforms the taste and experience, you WANT to have enough poison left in the fish when you eat or otherwise the meat itself is not that special
I remember hearing somewhere that the perfect fugu experience leaves your mouth numb, never heard of any psychological effects, interesting regardless between fugu and cockentrice you can tell people had a lot of time on their hands ..
I thought the saving grace of a fugu poisoning victim is that the toxin _can't_ pass the blood-brain barrier to cause CNS damage. A victim remains conscious even after the paralysis sets in. People die from fugu poisoning via suffocation-- the remedy is render artificial respiration until the liver gets rid of the toxin.
Fun Fact: The fugu fish doesn't actually produce Tetradotoxin, its made by bacteria in its gut. I have a video on how to chemically synthesize it on my channel
Sicily has a culinary tradition of recipe made with horse meat. In italy you can find horse meat sold in supermarket, just a bit more expensive than beef. There are also many butcher shops that sell only horse meat. You can eat it in restaurant. It's pretty common.
So weird to hear that horse meat is illegal in the USA. Here in the Netherlands, and especially south of the border in Belgium, it's quite common. Smoked horse meat, or a good horse steak is absolutely delicious!
Fun fact: Eating horse is not illegal in the US. Its just classified as a Pet animal and thus the meat can't be sold. Because of this, and due to the large expense in feeding them, the common horse is very nearly worthless on the open market. In fact, cheaper than most dog breeds.
What baffles me though is there are apparently 10s of thousands of mustang's running in massive herds in the wild. Would it not make sense to classify those specific horses as livestock rather than pets?
I remember a Belgian company that traded in horse meat wanted to exploit the low price of dead horse in the US by opening a horse slaughterhouse there. The meat was to be sold in horse-eating countries. The venture failed however, as it turned out Americans weren’t keen to send their old horses off to be slaughtered…
@@timpauwels3734 i think even in Belgium, horse meat is not common and very rare. (and most Belgians probably have a strong aversion to eating it) Probably only eaten by rural country old-timers, and the mega-rich...
In Norway we have this black salt-cured ham sausage made with part horse meat. It's a very traditional food still eaten today on slices of bread. It's called "svartpølse" or "stabburpølse" in norwegian.
I've eaten horse meat quite a few times (it's legal here in Canada). My wife has iron-deficiency related to Chron's disease and horse meat is rich in iron. It's not bad, but I can't say I love it.
@@betrayal6231 Not exactly (my dad loves to hunt, so I've tried a lot of game meat). It's kind of like very lean beef. It also has a "metallic" taste since it's iron-rich.
As someone with extensive experience preparing horse meat, I would suggest that perhaps you're overcooking it. It's a meat that tastes best *very* rare, or even raw as tartare, Japanese basashi, or Korean mal-yukhoe.
I've eaten horse and fugu while living in Japan Horse: eaten raw and chilled in an izakaya. More gamey than beef, not as rich as lamb. It was fine. Fugu: eaten at a restaurant because the host ordered it for the table. Honestly, I didn't care for the texture and I don't even recall the flavor. I do remember thinking it absolutely wasn't worth the risk, but I finished my share to be polite
Yes fugu isn't really something to write home about, not bad but not super distinct, soup is nice though. There's nothing to be afraid if you are eating it at a restaurant though, they use a handful of known species. Most death were the result of hobbyists who catch and prepare their own fugu, and misidentify fugu (there are different types) so they prepare them wrong.
I tried Fugu and it was like eh? Granted i wasn't the one paying for it but I was so unsatisfied with the meal i went to look for a tempura restaurant after that and had fonder memories of the 2nd meal.
I live near Brussels, Belgium, and horse steak is something I was pretty much raised on. Still eat that once a week with a nice Bordelaise sauce. There are restaurants in the nearby town of Vilvoorde that specialise in horse steak , highly recommended. Fun fact, the nickname for the Vilvordians is actually " de Pjeirefretters", literally translated: the horse eaters . When I told this to a visiting American acquaintance he was horrified. I've never known it was actually illegal to eat horse in the USA.
There are a couple ranchers who farm horsemeat for export to Mexico and Quebec. There’s apparently one abbatoir in Texas near the Mexican border who processes horses for meat.
Fun fact, when Christianity was being spread to Iceland, one of the things that the old pagans were resisting was that they wouldn't be allowed horse meat anymore. Instead of Christianity being spread by force, though, it was spread via negotiation, and a few of the terms that were agreed upon was that worship of the norse gods was still allowed in secret, and that horse meat would still be on the menu.
It makes sense to have that be the hot-button issue, since Icelanders pretty much only raised horses and sheep/goat at the time. Just imagine someone coming along and telling you to stop eating half the cuts of meats you eat!
...no one every forced Christianity on Vikings, anywhere ...the historical record states Christian priests and Pagan shaman had miracle contest/debates...the Vikings were converted by their awe of the power of the Christian God to which the pagan gods were impotent...
@@anarchorepublican5954 Charlemagne converted Scandinavians and followers of the Germanic (i.e essentially Norse) pantheon in the north of the Frankish Empire and very much did so by the sword.
@@anarchorepublican5954 What? I mean I don't really know how it went down in Scandinavia, but here in Iceland there was no "awe of the power of whatever". They literally held debates in Alþingi when the Norwegian King started applying pressure on us to convert. Deals were made to keep some of the old customs and Iceland would be made christian to keep up good relations with Norway. It is all very well explained in The Book of the Icelanders from the eleven-hundreds. Sure there are some romanticised stories about the pagans saying, in response to a volcano eruping, that the gods were showing their anger and one of the christian missionaries asking "what were the gods angry at when the lava we stand on now flowed?", but in the end the conversion was mostly made out of pragmatism and to avoid a civil war.
@@wolfer1000 The only case I've heard of "demonstrating the power of God" was Boniface cutting down a sacred tree in Frisia. But then the locals just lynched him afterwards, they didn't exactly convert...
I saw this on today’s episode of Good Mythical Morning. Didn’t expect you to try them but make sense as these flavors like horse meat, fugu, and maggot cheese do in fact have some history to them. For the topic of eating horse meat, I actually would eat horse if giving the opportunity.
I remember my dad telling a story that he once had a British girlfriend and when she came over to Belgium my grandmother gave her horse meat .... it didn't end well :p But like you said horse meat is still commonly eaten in europe and I remember going to restaurants in Brussels known for their horse steak. It's very lean meat and I've noticed recently we have quite a lot of lean meats that we eat on bread. Filet d'anvers & filet d'ardennes springing to mind as being lean but quite spiced. Of course our bread is a lot less sweet than american ones so it's a good match but with sweeter bread the sweetness would overpower the taste of the meat. I remember when I was very young there were restaurants serving rat but that was banned in the 90's I believe ... my dad said it tasted like rabbit meat. They also put it on the menu as water rabbit :p
Wasn't that specificly muskrat? And as i can remember, atleast in the netherlands, it was banned because their populations couldn't otherwise be sustained. My relatives found the taste to be more like wild hare than rabbit. Edit; spelling
I feel like if you don't want to at least try the local food, maybe you shouldn't date someone from there! I definitely want to try horse when I go to europe
Horse meat being illegal was overturned federally in 2011 and is only so in certain states; also it's more so the sale of it, because horse slaughter is unregulated by the FDA. But yes horse meat (in texture also) is very similar to venison. It also can be important to some people religiously, myself included, and personal slaughter and consumption is just treated more or less as wild game.
I was wondering about that - it struck me as it would be quite similar to Venison ... and correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Native Americans eat horse meat as well? I think it's just a matter of personal impression and preference, really. As to Pope Gregory ... he clearly didn't pay much attention to his New Testament reading or he'd see that many of those Levitical taboos were overturned.
The main eversion to eating horse in America is its association with fraudulent substitution and mystery meat. There are some fairly notable scare stories of horse being labeled as beef or pork. If horse was properly prepared and labeled as a delicacy rather than a cheap substitute.
Is it true that fugu makes your mouth tingle due to the small amount of poison that is still in the edible part of the fish? For that reason, fugu has always fascinated me but sadly I do not live in Japan.
I agree on both. I had fugu once and i think it was the sashimi that tasted less of all I tried so far. I think it's about the kick, that it could kill you if it's done wrong. Love to Japan from Germany. Really miss it! Zaru Udon to tempura 🤤
@@Kelly_Grey I lived in Japan for a year and a half and had fugu prepared several ways (sashimi, tempura, and hotpot). My mouth never tingled, even a little bit. Pretty sure if there's enough toxin left to make your mouth tingle, there's enough to do some damage. Also, if you ever do try it, go for the hotpot. The sashimi version is super mild, tempura usually has bones in it and is kinda weirdly sweet, but the hotpot is very tasty.
@@Kelly_Grey honestly I highly doubt that since less than a drop can be lethal to a human. Not only that but if I recall correctly the poison is only found in (some of) the organs.
@@Kelly_Grey the meat has never made my mouth tingle, but they sometimes make a drink with the dried fins roasted for a few seconds and then soaked in alcohol. That stuff is tingly
I really love what you do here. Also I admire your willingness to step far out of your comfort zone to examine the stranger items you find. Your videos are educational, inspiring and highly amusing. Also, yourvwork is very well presented and prepared most professionally. Please keep making these. Next summer my brother and I are planning to make garum. Godz above we are foolish old men for even considering this.
As a small child, I called corned beef “horse meat.” As to why I called it horse meat I haven’t a clue, but I loved my horse meat! 🥩 I would go to grocery store with my Dad and always asked our butcher, Clarance, for horse meat. He smile and give a piece of corned beef. He even wrapped my horse meat in a separate package just for me. Of course, the people around us would give me a curious smile. Probably thought I was an addlepated child. LOL 😂
My French wife's family calls corned beef " Boite de singe" or tin of monkey meat it comes from the first world War where the French didn't recognise the meat and couldn't read the label. But in certain areas of Northern France it is still enjoyed as a ragu cooked with bacon a bouquets garni and potatoes. Its really good and I think the recipe is an ancestor of an American army dish.
'Gamey' flavor people are used to in venison is mostly caused by poor shooting and poorer handling during butchering... if you half ass shot a cow, let it run around for a few minutes, didn't properly bleed the carcass, and didn't handle the meat properly it would taste a heck of a lot more gamey than you're used to compared to the common supermarket beef.
Someone gets it. It is exactly like you said. I remember eating deer stew that was almost black, and tasted like cooked blood that you left sitting in a rabbit-cage for a day. Lol
@@МагнусПерунов that sounds kind of awful to my palate, unless that was intentional. I do like a good venison steak, though I had a neighbor from Louisiana who made a Cajun-style venison jerky which was amazing
I genuinely had to ask myself “is it weird to have eaten horse?” when I saw this title. Apparently in the English-speaking countries, yes? I find it hilarious as horse meat salami is not uncommon at all in Poland, if you look for it 😂
I live in the US and it's always confused me. Like it's okay to eat cows and pigs but we draw the line at horses, and make fun of Asian countries who eat dogs and south Americans who eat guinea pigs. Why not just legalize all meat and let people decide if they don't have the constitution to consume a specific animal? I know why one individual might choose not to eat horses or dogs because they had a pet horse or dog, but to make it illegal and taboo? That's just weird. I had a pet potbellied pig as a kid and I still eat pork, and I would never say it should be illegal for other people to choose to eat pork because I loved my pet pig. It blows my mind the way people justify these double standards of what is too cute and lovable to eat. Pigs and chickens are as cute as kittens and puppies and cows and horses are almost the same damn thing, but people have their delusions.
@@-desertpackrat I keep pet chickens and eat chicken as well. I just think if you designate an animal as a pet, it's usually off limits (barring certain circumstances). Also, chicken are heckin' cannibalistic, I can literally share KFC with them with little issue!
Fugu is interesting and while chefs claim the version raised without poison isn't as good. Well, the diamond industry claims that artificial diamonds are as good as natural ones so I'll wait on a double blind for the fish flavor thing.
My grandfather made a point of buying top quality Stilton and Shropshire Blue every mid winter and yes it had maggots . The cheese maturing process in cellars took ages and thus the high price. Modern commercial blue cheese often has the mould veins introduced artificialy to speed things up. Eating Horse was a sacrificial event in Ireland at the crowning of the High King and as the Horse is a sacred animal both to Celts and Saxons would not be an everyday event hence the Tabu. Rhiannon would not approve.
Horse Sausage slices on bread and butter is actually quite popular in Norway. I for one loves lightly roasted bread with butter, with a tiny bit of salt, and then the horse sausage. Its super yum!
When I was a child and the family was struggling financially, my dad went Black Angus Beef in Vancouver, BC, and purchased horsemeat, he admitted it years later that we didn't even notice the difference. Also, you can purchase horsemeat in select Quebec grocery stores. I personally don't see a problem with eating horsemeat when alternative meats are more expensive.
It can also be more ethical as horse meat gets more tender and flavourful as the animal ages, so it can live an entire full life and then we can enjoy it after it's died. Plus it's sweeter and much more interesting than beef or pork in my opinion.
Horse is delicious. I had a braised horse dish in Strasbourg and it was one of the best meals of my life. Lean without being dry, flavorful and not at all greasy, perfect for a winter dinner.
In France "chevaline" is readily available. My understanding was that eating horses was encouraged during the 19th century. With the advent of so many people moving to the cities, beef was inaccessible to the poor. Yet there were plenty of horses used for transportation and drayage, so those excess or not useful (due to age or injury) horses were butchered for protein.
As a military member stationed in Sicily, we would take people out to the panini stands in the middle of the night and introduce them to “cavalo” sandwich. And watch them eat it when you tell them what it is. The best philly “steak” sandwich I ever had was then sliced horse steak, peppers, onions, and provolone cheese on herbed Focaccia. Sooo good!
Yeah, I don't get why people are so squeamish about horse meat, it's honestly much more ethical than beef or pork, as the animal can live it's entire life well and the meat just gets better anyways, you don't need to kill it young for it to be tender or flavourful.
doing that is dangerous. i'm in the military too and one of my biggest fears is having coworkers do that to me, only to find out they made me eat cat meat. i'd kms afterwards, not even joking.
I'm vegan and even I don't get the "uuh, it's horse" thing.. it's meat prepared for human consumption, nbd. Same with rabbit and bunny. Even dog or cat and insects. I don't get it.
I went to Germany 6 years ago for a high school trip and had the chance to try a horsemeat burger at a summer fair in a small town on the Elbe (I wanna say Bleckede but I could be wrong). Honestly it was really good, I remember it being really juicy and a bit softer and chewier than I expected but a perfectly fine burger, went well enough with fries and a Sprite anyway. Definitely recommend people try it if they get the chance.
I’ve hade horse steak in Kazakhstan before. It was delicious. A little tougher than cow, and a slightly stronger flavour. But I figure most people wouldn’t notice the difference if they didn’t already know.
I've had horse meat, in Switzerland, southern Germany and also Quebec. I've had it as sausage, prosciutto and steak. I found it to be not overly gamey or strong, similar to beef or kangaroo probably - but I come from Australia and we're used to eating grass-fed meats here. I'm a big fan of lamb, and tend to find beef a bit too mild and boring tasting, so I might have a preference for gamey meats. I bought the horse steak because I was travelling alone, and only staying in Montreal and Quebec City for like, a few days in each, and the only meat I could buy in the supermarket in small quantities rather than family sized packs was game meat, so I had bison and horse. I liked bison too but couldn't tell you anything distinct about it.
I’ve only had Horse as a steak.....I ordered Steak and Frites in a restaurant just outside Paris and when it came it clearly wasn’t beef. I asked the restauranteur if it was Horse when he came to check on us, he said it was, I told him it was the best horse steak I’d ever had and could I get another beer. Good eatin’
There is still a horse butcher in Munich. (Some decades ago there were many more) Bought some meat for a roast from them. It is like you said: very similar to beef but more red and lean. I really like it.
I really want to go to Kazakhstan, mainly for reasons other than food, but definitely the food is also a reason (no dish in particular; I just like trying new things). Apparently horse is everywhere; the default appetiser is a big platter of horse meat, and cooking with horse is as common as cooking with any other kind of more-conventional red meat. It makes sense that these people have a matter-of-fact, unsentimental view of horses. There is great value and relationship with such animals, but also, anything that can serve as food shouldn't be wasted. It's a laudable outlook.
I saw horse meat at a grocery store in New Brunswick the other day. Seems like the French people love that shit. I really wanna try it. Can’t believe it’s illegal in US
I'm just really appreciating the art on the horse chip bag. Horses are brown, potatoes are brown, potato chip bags have potatoes peel into chips, horse chip bags. Brilliant
My dad used to hunt deer during the beef shortage of the early 1970s and that venison was never gamey. He told me that venison is only that way when the deer was stressed before dying. It's adrenaline that makes the meat tough and taste funny. He was a major proponent of the clean and humane kill, with a single shot to the head, preferably through the eye. Dad was a very good shot.
My uncle and his sons went deer hunting every season. (They had a large family. He was a master brick layer, which is a seasonal job in western PA.) Main reason was to have meat on the table. My aunt canned a lot of the venison. (It was very good.) Some of his friends would offer him their deer. He would accept only those that were properly field dressed.
I think most people that call meat "gamey" are too used to meat that has zero flavor, like factory-raised chicken versus chicken that eats what chickens should.
@@jacquelyns9709 exactly a lot of gamey flavors can come from poor or improper field dressing. Also can come from diet of the animal. It also can and most commonly is a result of how the meat is cooked.
Yeah, my Cat mixed his chicken herd with with ornamental, wild,and Egg Layer chickens so the very cool looking to very funky looking offspring is kind of a crap shoot if it smels gamey or like really good free range organic Even though he past away desedents of his flock still come out of the woods and make a march around my property stopping at my front door, back house front door(tenants throw rice), Studio Front door(tenants throw rice) and my back door before going back in the woods 3 times a day(remaining cats picking off any straggler chicks)
For anyone interested in trying sweet, forbidden (to those in the US) candy flavors, Lofty Pursuits is a candy-maker in Tallahassee Florida that makes hard candies using Victorian equipment and they sell a mix or two of hard candies with flavors that are hard to find (horehound) or forbidden/illegal (black currant). I highly recommend getting their candy as well as their RUclips Channel too!!
@@duchesssunset29 The fruit itself is illegal because the plants are carriers for a disease that was killing pine trees. But we still have jams, juices, and candies and stuff.
In Finland horse meat is not really available as meat-meat from the butcher but cold cuts (sausages and such) made from it are available. Very tasty, more flavor than beef.
You can actually get horse meat sashimi, with different levels of marbling even, in Japan! Stumbled upon one restaurant by accident because the poster outside looked just like fish sashimi 😅
I really didn't expect to see Mythical Chef Josh's food creations on a refined channel such as this. Total opposite energies lmao. But I had to check the video out when I saw the bags in the preview window.
It's kind of weird to me that there aren't more Mythical fans swarming the comments. I got stoked when I saw the title, and then noticed there was almost no one talking about Josh.
I kinda feel that Max should go for a culinary vacation to Europe once all this covid is over, there is a great many things to taste over here and there is often local specialties that can both surprise and delight. For instance do the tiny Canary island Gran Canaria have surprisingly great food, Gotland in Sweden makes wonderful saffron pancakes with salmbärs (a kind of local black raspberry) jam. Malta have Fennek (a rabbit dish) and so on. That is just a few random things. Haggis looks disgusting (also forbidden in US) but isn't bad at all.... The list just goes on and a history food tour would make a great series for the channel. I don't think horse meat is anything special but I can't say it taste like venison. It is closer to beef but with a strong addition of something hard to describe so I don't thinks the chips got it right. I don't see why it should be forbidden anywhere though unlike the other 2 which makes more sense. I am Swedish, horse is mainly eaten here on sandwiches, often in sausage form. I don't like it very much myself but it isn't terrible or anything.
I think that'd a great idea. In the Netherlands we have "paarden rookvlees" which is smoked horsemeat very thinly sliced, you can get the same but then made from normal cows meat. And have "paarden biefstuk" which is a beef steak but has a stronger, deeper taste. I used to be more common in the past, but in general although I think eating horse meat is dying out with the generations.
@@telebubba5527 : My understanding is that horses are more vulnerable to bad feed than cattle, so I'd hazard a guess that it will _continue_ to die out in the Netherlands, and likely the world in general. Horses seem to have really just been better than cattle for speed reasons than anything else, and their speed just isn't really important anymore.
Interesting note about fugu is that the licensing to prep it was put in place by general Douglas MacArthur. This was due to a rash of fugu poisonings across Japan in the post-war era cuz in those days if you prepared it you just threw the organs out in the trash and people would go in the trash and take fish organs and cook and eat them and well fugu liver is the most poisonous part of the fish.
In western Europe, particularly the British Isles, there are strong cultural associations between monarchs, the land they rule, and horses. It was probably regarded as close to cannibalism, and in the British Isles probably considered worse in some circles. That might have hung on and offered firm footing for the Church's ban.
Very, very close, according to Geraldus Cambrensis in ~1200 CE, who reported seeing an Irish king in, hem, congress with a horse during a ceremony. There are thoughts that he was making it up as he really didn't like the Irish.
@@hjalfi It's a curious and probably unanswerable issue by now. However, one thing that comes through a lot of western European myth is that horses are closely associated with land, and in fact, with women, e.g. the goddesses Epona, Rhiannon, Etain, and others. What's striking about these is that they're all Celtic. If you poke around, there's a pattern that holds broadly, in that south of the Alps, the Sun is associated with male concepts and the Moon with female. North of the Alps the celestial bodies get a sex change. The Moon is male, and the sun female and this holds across several linguistic groups. The point the digression is that the same holds true of horses, which are associated with Poseidon and Ares, and the Roman equivalents. So, breaking that linkage between women and land would have been a means of thoroughly disrupting the "pagan" societies to the north.
Eh, at least in my part of the British Isles there really isn't a taboo associated with eating horse other than "It's a French thing", more an availability issue. We have a ludicrous number of horses per person but that number doesn't even come vaguely close to the number of other, significantly less difficult to raise animals. If it *was* a cultural association with deities then we'd probably have eaten them *more* readily than most realise, just to screw with the heads of the occupiers. That, the idea that "As healthy as a horse" is one of the greatest oxymorons known to mankind and the fact local dishes can, and do, use pretty much *anything* would lead me to doubt that. I would tend to go with the opinion that they were both too useful and too hard to raise to be seen primarily as food, unlike a pig or a sheep. Also it's worth bearing in mind that we didn't eat cows often until around the 11th century for pretty much the same reason - not as cost effective to raise. I was raised (and still live) in farming country where the idea of rabbit or pigeon doesn't even slow us down, we hunted them for pocket money as children and took a reduced bounty so we could keep the carcasses to feed the family. I would say that practicality determined more than some cultural taboo as I'm fairly certain that, even today, most of the folks in my area wopuldn't even bat an eyelid at the thought of eating horse. It tastes good but other meats taste better and are significantly more readily available. Like venison which I would take over horse any day and we have local herds.
Horse is pretty good! It's pretty common here in Belgium and is a decent alternative to steak as it is slightly better for you. Thin slices of smoked horse are also great as charcuterie
I'd love to get my hands on a whole piece of horse meat, where I live I only ever find ground meat. It's good but it's kind of limiting to only have it in this form.
In my country Horse meat is considered a delicacy. You can not get it in normal stores you need to specially order the meat from a farm. As someone who tasted it, its ok. And there is a burger restaurant in Ljubljana Slovenia where you can get Horse burgers called Horse Burger.
I've always thought the taboo against horse in Western culture was at least partially due to their perceived status as a companion animal such as dogs and cats, but also due to their breeding cycle. Horses take longer to reproduce than cattle, swine, etc. I've watched some old Iron Chef Japan episodes that include horse as an ingredient and it seems to be considered flavorsome. The comparison to venison gave me a good reference point. I could not see myself trying Casu Marzu, however. ETA: Fugu. The non toxic type seems to defeat the historical purpose, whereby the consumer would ingest just enough toxin to give a tingly mouthfeel along with the flavor profile. Am I wrong?
Here in Sicily (southernmost Italy), eating horse meat is considered fully normal, especially in some provinces (Catania is the most famous about it). Those chips would sell like crazy over here! 😂 In my opinion, not eating horse but having no remorse when eating lambs, piglets, etc. is a big piece of hypocrisy, and I've been a horse rider for over 10 years!
Eh, everybody has food taboos from the culture grew up with to some degree. In the US most people would react to being served horse the same way they'd react to being told they'd been served the family dog. Same with the very tasty rabbit. Not to mention it's hard to eat what isn't avaible. Lamb isn't available in my region except around Easter. Even then it's very expensive.
@@HeraldHealer I don't think America has a rabbit taboo. It's not sold in stores but it's a popular small game animal. On the other side of the spectrum I've heard of it served at fancy restaurants
@@wanderingwonder111 : There's a bit of a taboo against eating rabbit, though it would probably prove to be similar in strength to the eating of squirrel, and situational (e.g. tell them that it's a dish from an area that traditionally eats rabbit, and prepared by a local butcher, and you'll see much less resistance).
I'm from the Eastern Siberia, and was just shocked to hear 'illegal horse meat', because it is probably the most basic meat for the local traditional cuisine and is widely consumed to these days. You learn something new every day :)
Horse meat is pretty common in Sweden but in grocery stores it's usually called "hamburger meat" when it's in the smoked sandwich/deli form.. its kinda like a mix between roast beef, venison and pastrami, pretty tasty :) I gotta say I'm pretty put off fugu after seeing it being prepared... I'm a meat lover through and through but the way fugu is prepared is frickin brutal....
He did "Aztec Chocolate - Blood & Spice," "Unwrapping Aztec Tamales | The Tamale Wars," and "Quesadillas Cernidas & Aztec Maize" (he probably should do an episode about native cuisine that isn't Aztec ... go north to say the Sioux or the various longhouse peoples like the Weydant or Iroquois ... or go south to the Incas maybe ... find the oldest potato recipe!). In his little history bits he has discussed native recipes and even pre-contact native recipes wrt to topics like cornbread. Also, ancient Recipes With Sohla did an episode on Pemmican and Sohla's Aztec Taco Tuesday (with hot chocolate!).
I didn't realize it's illegal to have horse meat in the US. We have plenty of it here in Canada, but few eat it regularly. The question is, do they taste neighsty? I never make puns, but I do it for you, Max.
The horse meat tabu is solely a J.C.I. item. In cultures never afflicted by those 3 religions, no tabu against horse meat. Horse meat is fairly comparable to beef, just leaner and sweeter.
I knew an older fellow who, as a boy, had eaten manatee in the early 1950's, as it was frequently "accidental" by-catch in nets. He said the only comparison he could make was to excellent prime rib.
Dang. On a cruise I went to one of those dolphin swims in Cancun and part of the tour included being with a manatee. I asked the guy if he had any idea how it tasted (because I was seriously curious not that I wanted a steak on the spot). The guy and my family looked at me as if I was devil in the flesh... never got an answer so, thank you for the reference!!!!
I know you don’t often have guests but I would love to see you talk with Chef Josh from Good Mythical Morning/Good Mythical Kitchen. I believe he worked with MSCHF to create these chips. He also does a lot of cooking episodes involving food from the past...but perhaps in an ever so slightly more manic way. 😊
I live in Germany near the french border and on the farmers market there is a special horse butcher. He visits this marked like once a month and sells his produce. Sausages, minced meat, steaks, roasts etc. Good tasty meat.
Which flavor are you most interested in trying?
Probably the fugu for the flavor since you seemed to like that one best. Don't know that I could mentally handle even fake horse meat or maggot poop flavoring, so those are a Nope.
Definitely the Fugu, that Simpsons episode fascinated me. Almost the immediately a Pop chips advert played talking about their exciting new flavours and it was too timely not to be funny.
Judging by your reaction, definitely the fugu
Meat- or fish-flavoured crisps seem weird to me already.
Fugu! I'm fairly sure we ate horsemeat whilst in france on a school trip as the meat was quote dark and we couldn't identify the flavour... Very intrigued by Fugu!
"You wouldn't eat a tank."
Bold assumption, Max.
_Bites into the Leopards rear._
Marines: Challenge Accepted
*consumes Tiger*
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A TANK
Somewhere, a football player's husband fell out of his chair laughing
I still laugh at the memory of a conversation with an ltalian friend here in New Zealand. I had been to Sardegna and had heard about Casu Marzu but, was NEVER going to eat maggoty cheese, no matter how special it was or how good they say it tastes. He said he'd eaten some as a child in ltaly.
When l asked him what it was like he shrugged and said, "it was OK", paused and added completely deadpan,
" l only cried a little bit".
Hey there fellow kiwi
@@benwyness148 Hey cuz. 😁
I tried some from an area of the cheese that wasn't moving.
@@saileyboy What was it like? I don't trust my gag reflex enough to even attempt it.
@@nikiTricoteuse been so long ago now - 10 years. Like a lot of cheeses from the piedmont area I guess - but with maggots.
Having actually had fugu in Osaka in 2019, 90% of the enjoyment of fugu sashimi is its texture. It has a bouncy almost rubbery texture but it's still fairly easy to chew, and it's almost translucent. You dip it in a special soy sauce that they prepare just for fugu and it's incredibly good.
Definitely doesn't sound like it's worth the risk
I didn’t like the texture.. too rubbery for me. Taste was nice though! Quite sweet.
Love the Pokémon Plushies referencing the chip flavours. Ponyta-Horse, Koffing-Pufferfish/fugu, Kakuna-Maggot
Pretty sure Qwilfish would've been a better plush for fugu instead of Koffing, but maybe it wasn't available 😅
I just caught that XD
@@zinzolin14 Overqwil would have been even better for the pun on the dangerous toxins.
I love how you give everything a chance - not just with these horrible sounding chips, but with everything you cook as well. It’s actually funny, too, as I can almost see your nose curling up when something doesn’t seem too appetizing, but you give everything a fair chance. Good job, Max. Love this site. Keep up the good work!
"Don't knock it till you try it" as they say.
Unless it could maim or kill you, then you probably shouldn't try it. lol
I saw this video and thought, "That reminds me of something that Josh did on Mythical Kitchen recently." Then I looked up illegal chips. Mythical Chef Josh sent Max his illegal food. This crossover is literally more ambitious than No Way Home.
Wait what's the video with Josh in it?
We have dedicated horse butchers in germany and you can get steaks, sausage and everything. It is quite good actually and the meat is very clean, since horses have pretty much a spotless veterinary health record and a happy life as opposed to cattle.
Same in italy
What does it taste like?
I lived in Germany for half a year and I remember the day walking down the street with the other students and asking "What's 'Pferdemetzgerei?'" Wait, HORSE?
@@gobnaitaine5103 It has kind of a sweet taste to it. like very lean red meat, but a little sweet.
@@gobnaitaine5103 It's really dark meat, leaner and much more savory than beef. In Finland you'll typically find horse as deli meats, smoked and pretty salty which hides the flavour unfortunately, but it's a lot like reindeer/ game. And it's the main ingredient in a type of salami. But it's quite rare to find horse steak or roast, much less the more mundane parts.
My great grandma had us sing "the old grey mare ain't what she used to be" at her funeral. What a crazy woman, and I never expected anyone else to actually know that song.
I think I first heard that song from Bugs Bunny, or one of the other loony toons :)
did you do the Baggy pants dancer dance?
Strangely, I know that song form somewhere in my childhood. Nut o have no idea where from...
I'm in Ireland, btw. Your great grandmother sounded amazing. Definitely my kind of lady 😆
I first heard it on The Simpsons.
Oh word? I know that song.
"It's like venison but a bit less gamey." That's a remarkably close approximation, especially after so little contact!
So basically what you’re saying is that I need to buy some horse steaks. Ain’t illegal here!
Have you ever had bison meat? It sounds like it might taste similar.
I had horse steak several times years ago at the Harvard Faculty Club, where it was a well-known specialty. That's a good description.
I've always compared it to elk meat. Delicious.
I know it's unrelated, but I couldn't help but think:
"I mean, you wouldn't eat a tank..."
"But Earl's crazy though. He ate one of my cars once. Yep, the whole car. Like with a fork."
Borderlands! Good taste! XD
🤣😂🤣
WHATCHU WANT?
Ohhh you gotta love Crazy Earl.
I thought you were making a reference to M*A*S*H*, when Klinger ate a jeep...
Borderlands is good, too, though 🤣
3:30 - "It's so weird that they can make a chip that tastes like meat." I said the same thing a couple months ago. Local big-brand grocery store has their in-house brand of potato chips, and one of the flavours they offered recently is Baby Back Rib. I took a bite, stopped for a sec, and looked in the bag for pork bones, because good gosh almighty, that was a disturbingly porky tasting chip. There was smoke, there was spice, there was *actual pork* taste. Not bacon, either, but like, *ribs,* as the bag said. SO WEIRD but actually quite good.
Years ago, my friend and I tried fried chicken flavored potato chips. Worst snack food I’ve ever tasted, like old grease and fatty chicken skin. 🤢
I’d go for the ribs chips if I could still eat nightshades, though! 😋
The weridest part is that a lot of the meat flavored chips are vegan, while something like salt & vinegar isn't.
Pringles had a Hamburger flavor a couple of years ago and I picked up a can on a whim when I saw it at the store... It actually had a surprisingly accurate flavor profile.
A friend of mine bought a "Thanksgiving Meal" set of Jones Soda bottles. The corn on the cob soda tasted exactly like corn on the cob. I think it's literal sorcery.
Herr's Baby Back Ribs potato chips are like this
My dad who’s in his 70’s said when he was young a store offered an amazing deal on steaks and his mom bought some steaks and they ate them and they said they were amazing some of the best steaks they’ve ever eaten and then a few weeks later it turned out that they were selling horse meat and got in big trouble
I've heard the same about kangaroo
@@jamieblack3235 kangaroo is decent. Little greasey
Roo meat is almost completely lean. Roos have like, 1% body fat so a lot comes down to how it is prepared and cooked
It's absurd that it's illegal.
@@WobblesandBean "It's absurd" - welcome to reality. Most of the laws are absurd.
Fugu isn't illegal in the US, it can just only be served by sushi chefs who have been certified in Japan of which there are only a handful in this country. There is a restaurant called Shiki in Seattle that imports live fugu during the fugu season every year.
Honestly, I didn't find it particular yummy compared to other sushi but it was worth the novelty.
what did it taste like?
This I have eaten it in California**
Agreed. It wasn't bad, but I definitely prefer unagi over it.
Do customers have to sign waivers saying they know the risks so the next of kin can’t sue if the consumer dies from eating the product LOL?
@@drawmaster77 Allegedly fugu tastes like a mild lightly sweet whitefish but (If safely prepared) has a mild numbing tingling in the mouth a few seconds later. Think of the flavor of chinese peppercorn very diluted, I was told.
The Kuzco reference was impeccable. Also me while trying to eat my breakfast while entranced by this video 😂
This is quite possibly the most clever sponsorship I've ever seen. I think since you mentioned that texture is so important, it might be cool for them to make like, a beef or pork flavored chip so you can more easily compare the horse meat. Plus, to some people beef/pork actually is an illegal flavor, at least in spirit. Personally I'd love to try a mixed bag if they make one, especially one that contains related flavors. "Spectrum of Shrimp!" "Cornucopia of Cattle!" "Various Doneness Levels of Chicken, from Raw to Ash."
When I lived in northeast China, I found that they refused to eat dogs, and the theory was that dogs had too important a role in Manchu culture as herding animals. They were considered above food animals. I’ve always thought horses were the same for us-Black Beauty, Black Stallion, and so on. So the story about the bans against horse meat were very interesting-I never knew it was a law. I still wonder if the cultural value of horses influenced some of those laws.
It's not banned, so much as it's not allowed to be inspected for public consumption. This means it can't be sold to the public. However individuals could raise and butcher and eat their own, as long as they don't sell it.
The other issue with eating horse, is that some of the medications we give them, could cause us issues when consuming them. I think this is point used to keep them from being inspected for public consumption, along with the idea that many put them in the strictly 'pet' category.
Personally while I love my horse dearly and would not choose to eat her, I would have no issue with eating one that was raised for consumption and humanly put down. Just as I eat fish and chicken without a second thought, but would not want to eat any of my pet fish or even the chickens I used to keep. Once I name an animal it becomes too much of a pet for me.
It’s an inherited conceit from the harder to Christianise European countries....the ones which had relatively more ingrained Heathen traditions such as the UK. (Horse was a Sacred Meat eaten at Observances like an Odinnfing)
Those kingdom which were more easily Christianised like France never had to be browbeaten with claims their eating of horse was an ‘unclean pagan practice’ because they were already showing up in church.
When European traditions differ along an axis....America tends toward the English way.
That would make sense since dog is pretty big in rural Southern China, the least influenced by the Qing rule
I can tell you that, here in Australia, there definitely is a culture around horses. Less of a culture, in fact, more of a cult. They nostalgise the horse as this symbol of frontiersman-ship and freedom (yeah, we have a lot of those sorts of assholes here too; they're not unique to America) and anything to do with horses gets eulogised and wrapped up in this passion. To the point where we have feral horses (i.e. totally wild, nothing at all to do with humans) wreaking havoc on the ecosystem, overgrazing and trampling sensitive alpine grasslands and streams, causing huge erosion problems and driving native animals to extinction, and we literally can't do anything about it, because some guy in a hat rode one into the countryside once, some other guy wrote a ballad about it, and now they're untouchable. Even the mere suggestion of wanting to do anything about it (rounding them up, culling them) is enough to bring these cowboy (well, Akubra) hat-wearing assholes out to picket in front of Parliament, so you can imagine there'd be hell to pay if you dared suggest eating them.
@@Zzyzzyzzs I live in Melbourne...and I accept this challenge.
Regarding the horsemeat taboo in the US: Max mentions that the taboo died out in Europe in the 19th century. At that time in the US, Aus, etc. horses were a KEY part of economic activity in those countries (cowboys for example) so utility effectively extending the taboo makes some sense. The continuation is probably related to the horse seamlessly moving from a very important utility animal to a pet of sorts since the rise of mechanization.
That's what I was going to say, horses practically built the US so I think that's why we have an adversion to it
For what it's worth the horse meat trade was an outgrowth of their use: carriage horses would be retired to the butcher's and come out as the usual (e.g. hoof glue) as well as meat, no sense in wasting that. Obviously in the 20th century with the advent of food safety this became a bit of an issue as the stuff administered to "work horses" is not necessarily considered suitable or safe for human consumption.
I mean, i get your explanation, but it's not like all those other countries didn't used horses for productivity endeavors aswell.
In Brazillian Northeast for example, Donkeys were big means of transportation and work but some people still eat it (was never so much much of a common practice, but still...)
The last three U.S. slaughterhouses that dealt in horse closed in 2007.
But it makes even more sense to eat horse meat when you have so many horses, so you get at least a few meals of them when they're too old or hurt; the same way that today most "beef" is in fact old dairy cows...
I have eaten ( many times) Casu Marzu and horse meat, as I live in Sardinia…both are delicious and the Casu is most definitely sharper than Stilton ..a lot sharper. Horse meat is common and is at times prescribed by doctors for the high iron content. Love your show!
Delicacy; code word for, "I dare you to eat this." "OMG, he did! Wait, now I want to try it."
Sometimes, and there is also plenty of "normal" food that was def a dare at some point. "Omg, we let the milk go bad! Like, really bad. Hmmm, what if I just ate it..."
I always thought it was code for "this is gross but if you eat enough and think hard enough you can forget it's gross."
@@WillKrause21 Maybe that first person to experiment was like me. For some odd reason, I can't smell rotten milk. In all other ways, my sense of smell is normal. I've accidentally drunk milk chunky. Sometimes it tastes like melted sour cream, and other times moderately bitter. It never caused me any gastric distress. My GF does call me a goblin for my strong stomach though.
@@patrickmccurry1563 my god, I gagged just reading that. I wonder how you'd react to carbonated milk...
I've had horse and fugu sashimi on multiple occasions and really enjoyed them both! Casu marzu has always been on my bucket list so let's hope we all get to travel again soon.
casu marzu honestly feels like something that is specifically only “gross” to americans and most europeans. most people eat some kind of insect fairly regularly. beyond that, it’s just really really funky pecorino
@@choicebarrelscrotes2732 Yeah but if you think about it there isn't a lot of crossover between big cheese-making/eating regions and insect eating regions. Cheese is mostly a north american and european thing, with little cheese-making tradition in south america, africa, and asia. Well, of scale anyway, there is obviously plenty of cottage style simple cheeses, especially among most groups that survive through animal husbandry of large mammals. At the same time, Entomophagy is big...in south america, africa, and asia.
The countries I think are closest to sharing those two foods are gonna be in Latin America. Mexico I know appreciates both, and the other two nations that probably come closest are Argentina (Highest cheese consumption outside of EU and anglosphere, but I am unsure if they have a history of Entomophagy) and Brazil (Which I know DOES have some Entomophagy but I also am not sure how big they are on cheese. Wait, cattle ranching is huge, so they should be? Are there any uniquely Brazilian styles of cheese?).
Anyway, I thought that was kinda interesting. It even has a very simple reason: Cheese-making regions tend to be cooler for obvious reasons, you need a certain climate for it, and regions that have a strong tradition of Entomophagy tend to be warmer for a couple of reasons that would be even MORE off-topic to go into. You can obviously enjoy cheese in the heat and eat bugs in the arctic if you care to, but climate plays a big role into what type of cuisine becomes a big deal to different cultures.
The larvae are literally popping up all over the cheese while you eat it, and you absolutely will eat mouthfuls of the little buggers, so it's definitely reserved for the most determined of cheese lovers.
@@bodyofhope they’ll also pop in your mouth too. it’ll be an experience for sure
@@bodyofhope challenge accepted.
I’ve had Fugu soup and you’re right about the sweetness. It was amazingly delicious, well worth the risk if death. 💀💀😵🤕
All kidding aside, death are highly uncommon with a professional chef.
Great video as always Max.
Yea, risk of death is like getting struck by lightning with professional chefs, most of them use a handful of well known species. Most deaths are the result of hobbyists who catch and prepare their own fish. They misidentify fugu and prepare them wrong, different fugu have different edible parts, with some being completely inedible.
Considering a famous kabuki actor died after eating fugu and sumo wrestlers are banned from eating it, I probably won’t try it anytime soon.
@@ferretyluv I understand your concern. Recently 345 people have gotten sick, 3 died as a result of eating tainted cantaloupes…the most basic fruit.
Eating fugu once or twice in a lifetime….ill take those odds.
Coming from someone who can get ground horsemeat from the nearby grocery store: the chips seem to be spot on on the horsemeat, as it really does taste like a less-gamey version of venison. Horse is very low-fat afterall, so the meat goes well in any dish where you'd want to have a low-fat piece of meat.
Ps. eating horse isn't too common here (Finland) except as a partial ingredient to some salami-like sausages (most people eating the sausage might not even know there is horse in there), but it does not have as strong a negative connotation as it has in many other countries.
personally i don't get the problem with horse meat. Though would like to try it. Because as you described it and as others have described it. it sounds like an interesting thing to try.
Am Canadian, also can get horse meat here, though it's not common. (Mostly enjoyed by the elderly/French. I was introduced to it by my grand mother) Agree that the description is spot on. I also think horse meat has a slight sweetness to it, but maybe that's just me!
Ironically I've heard that a LOT of the horse meat sold here comes from the US. No idea how true that is but kinda funny considering it's illegal over there
@@aerisafoxfeather Horses are trucked across the border and slaughtered for consumption in Canada.
In my opinion it tastes almost like beef but less fatty. Cold smoked horse meat is my favorite.
@@aerisafoxfeather It's actually quite commonly eaten here in Quebec. And it's delicious. :)
Hi, actually a native of Sardinia here! From your reaction to the Casu Carzu chips i'm pretty confident that a lot of the falvour has been "lost in translation". I can assure you that it's way stronger than Stilton! ahahah
Anyway, cool video as always!
p.s. Lots of Sardinians dislike Casu Marzu, but it's kinda traditional so it's still made for those crazy enough to eat it and enjoy it.
Can you describe what cheese you think is closest to the flavor? (If there is one?)
good to know that people there are normal
Funny how a lot of 'traditional foods' are not actually popular in their native places (hákarl and lutefisk being BIG ones where I am from). Now theyre just something old folks and adventurous tourists try
I enjoy limburger cheese so I would probably try it
When I was in college one of my biology professors used to do research on the California newt, which secretes tetrodotoxin in its skin to protect itself from predators. He was very fond of telling us about the time a previous student dared him to kiss a newt he caught in the creek near the university, which everyone thought was hilarious up until he needed to be taken to the ER and put on a ventilator until he could breathe on his own again! He never mentioned what the newt tasted like though
Just proves that even the most educated among us are not immune to "no balls."
The irony of executing that starving Frenchman when fairly recently Stoffers France got in trouble for their lasagne for the UK market being full of horse meat.
Max's wild side is finally shining through 👏😂
Also, omg, we're so close to 1 million subs! I'm so happy to have seen you grown so much, Max! Been here since the beginning; love your chill energy, and how you manage to school me, and many others, in a simple way 🥰💖😊
Max starts talking about the Casa Marzu and I immediately start eyeing my cheese omelet suspiciously. Also, thanks for that brief moment of panic when I thought today was Tuesday, lol.
I definitely was very confused anf worried that I went to the wrong place for work (different for me depending on the day of the week).
Yes! I looked at the calendar earlier like "What day is it, Tuesday?... No, it's Monday" and then I opened RUclips and saw this video and was like "wait is it ACTUALLY Tuesday? It can't be Tuesday? It's Monday, it's not Tuesday. Is it Tuesday???" (also, Tuesday doesn't look like a real word to me anymore, yay semantic satiation)
According to "The Serpent and the Rainbow", the taste of fugu is kinda beside the point. The poison is the point. Get too much, you die. Get too little, you get way overpriced sushi. Get the right amount, you get ... high. Ish.
I thought it's really impossible to get too little of the poison because even a single drop of it could kill 20 men
@@513regichan yeah, no. the poison is a neurotoxin and it affects the taste buds wildly which really transforms the taste and experience, you WANT to have enough poison left in the fish when you eat or otherwise the meat itself is not that special
Ah humans, using and abusing substances since the dawn of time.
I remember hearing somewhere that the perfect fugu experience leaves your mouth numb, never heard of any psychological effects, interesting regardless
between fugu and cockentrice you can tell people had a lot of time on their hands ..
I thought the saving grace of a fugu poisoning victim is that the toxin _can't_ pass the blood-brain barrier to cause CNS damage. A victim remains conscious even after the paralysis sets in.
People die from fugu poisoning via suffocation-- the remedy is render artificial respiration until the liver gets rid of the toxin.
Fun Fact: The fugu fish doesn't actually produce Tetradotoxin, its made by bacteria in its gut. I have a video on how to chemically synthesize it on my channel
That sounds a bit unsafe.
@@muhammadschuitema1443 It is! All in a days work for a synthetic chemist though, we use incredibly dangerous chemicals everyday
@@SimplifyingSynthesis fair enough.
Sounds like there would be no reason for the toxin-free fish to be an "inferior product" then, right?
@@blahthebiste7924 the secret flavour is danger
love his husband's commentary - "chomps maggot cheese flavored chips" .lol
Time stamp?
@@bodyofhope when he chomped maggot cheese flavored chips
where do you see this commentary
@@andrewrollins1124 the captions
Sicily has a culinary tradition of recipe made with horse meat. In italy you can find horse meat sold in supermarket, just a bit more expensive than beef. There are also many butcher shops that sell only horse meat. You can eat it in restaurant. It's pretty common.
So weird to hear that horse meat is illegal in the USA. Here in the Netherlands, and especially south of the border in Belgium, it's quite common. Smoked horse meat, or a good horse steak is absolutely delicious!
I think almost everywhere in Europe people eat horse
And in the other side in Arabia, it is neigh-on impossible to find!
I was thinking the same when I watched today's GMM. Here in Poland horse meat isn't much popular these days, but it's still totally legal.
@@minty_macaron Boooo! :P
I was surprised fugu was. I knew it was highly regulated in Japan and Canada. I thought that the U.S. was the same. Shame.
Fun fact: Eating horse is not illegal in the US. Its just classified as a Pet animal and thus the meat can't be sold. Because of this, and due to the large expense in feeding them, the common horse is very nearly worthless on the open market. In fact, cheaper than most dog breeds.
What baffles me though is there are apparently 10s of thousands of mustang's running in massive herds in the wild. Would it not make sense to classify those specific horses as livestock rather than pets?
it cots money to have horses graze? Mkay
@@victoriashevlin8587 and also on chincoteague and assateague islands
I remember a Belgian company that traded in horse meat wanted to exploit the low price of dead horse in the US by opening a horse slaughterhouse there. The meat was to be sold in horse-eating countries.
The venture failed however, as it turned out Americans weren’t keen to send their old horses off to be slaughtered…
@@timpauwels3734 i think even in Belgium, horse meat is not common and very rare. (and most Belgians probably have a strong aversion to eating it) Probably only eaten by rural country old-timers, and the mega-rich...
Here in Germany, Horse Salami is available. The smoking/air drying really amplifies the flavor.
In Norway we have this black salt-cured ham sausage made with part horse meat. It's a very traditional food still eaten today on slices of bread. It's called "svartpølse" or "stabburpølse" in norwegian.
Horse meat is delicious.
Ooo, I didn’t know there was horse meat in that, I guess that means i have eaten horse meat before, and it was delicious😋
I need to try this so I can say I have eaten something called "stabburpølse". STABBITY!
This sound delicious!
we also have horse meat sausages in iceland called "hrossabjúgu" they're traditionally eaten with white souce and potatos
I've eaten horse meat quite a few times (it's legal here in Canada). My wife has iron-deficiency related to Chron's disease and horse meat is rich in iron.
It's not bad, but I can't say I love it.
Yeah. All four of my grandparents and my dad had all had horsemeat, and none of them would eat it if they had the option of something else.
Anything like Elk??
@@betrayal6231 Not exactly (my dad loves to hunt, so I've tried a lot of game meat). It's kind of like very lean beef. It also has a "metallic" taste since it's iron-rich.
As someone with extensive experience preparing horse meat, I would suggest that perhaps you're overcooking it. It's a meat that tastes best *very* rare, or even raw as tartare, Japanese basashi, or Korean mal-yukhoe.
@@Kazokano Interesting :)
Thanks!
I've eaten horse and fugu while living in Japan
Horse: eaten raw and chilled in an izakaya. More gamey than beef, not as rich as lamb. It was fine.
Fugu: eaten at a restaurant because the host ordered it for the table. Honestly, I didn't care for the texture and I don't even recall the flavor. I do remember thinking it absolutely wasn't worth the risk, but I finished my share to be polite
Yes fugu isn't really something to write home about, not bad but not super distinct, soup is nice though. There's nothing to be afraid if you are eating it at a restaurant though, they use a handful of known species. Most death were the result of hobbyists who catch and prepare their own fugu, and misidentify fugu (there are different types) so they prepare them wrong.
I tried Fugu and it was like eh? Granted i wasn't the one paying for it but I was so unsatisfied with the meal i went to look for a tempura restaurant after that and had fonder memories of the 2nd meal.
Nice, GMM just talked about theses this morning as well. Kudos to Josh and the MK crew!
"You wouldn't eat a tank, so you wouldn't eat a horse"- Max Miller. Circa 2021. XD
This made me want to try tank chips.
I live near Brussels, Belgium, and horse steak is something I was pretty much raised on. Still eat that once a week with a nice Bordelaise sauce.
There are restaurants in the nearby town of Vilvoorde that specialise in horse steak , highly recommended. Fun fact, the nickname for the Vilvordians is actually " de Pjeirefretters", literally translated: the horse eaters .
When I told this to a visiting American acquaintance he was horrified. I've never known it was actually illegal to eat horse in the USA.
There are a couple ranchers who farm horsemeat for export to Mexico and Quebec. There’s apparently one abbatoir in Texas near the Mexican border who processes horses for meat.
Fun fact, when Christianity was being spread to Iceland, one of the things that the old pagans were resisting was that they wouldn't be allowed horse meat anymore. Instead of Christianity being spread by force, though, it was spread via negotiation, and a few of the terms that were agreed upon was that worship of the norse gods was still allowed in secret, and that horse meat would still be on the menu.
It makes sense to have that be the hot-button issue, since Icelanders pretty much only raised horses and sheep/goat at the time. Just imagine someone coming along and telling you to stop eating half the cuts of meats you eat!
...no one every forced Christianity on Vikings, anywhere ...the historical record states Christian priests and Pagan shaman had miracle contest/debates...the Vikings were converted by their awe of the power of the Christian God to which the pagan gods were impotent...
@@anarchorepublican5954 Charlemagne converted Scandinavians and followers of the Germanic (i.e essentially Norse) pantheon in the north of the Frankish Empire and very much did so by the sword.
@@anarchorepublican5954 What? I mean I don't really know how it went down in Scandinavia, but here in Iceland there was no "awe of the power of whatever". They literally held debates in Alþingi when the Norwegian King started applying pressure on us to convert. Deals were made to keep some of the old customs and Iceland would be made christian to keep up good relations with Norway. It is all very well explained in The Book of the Icelanders from the eleven-hundreds.
Sure there are some romanticised stories about the pagans saying, in response to a volcano eruping, that the gods were showing their anger and one of the christian missionaries asking "what were the gods angry at when the lava we stand on now flowed?", but in the end the conversion was mostly made out of pragmatism and to avoid a civil war.
@@wolfer1000 The only case I've heard of "demonstrating the power of God" was Boniface cutting down a sacred tree in Frisia. But then the locals just lynched him afterwards, they didn't exactly convert...
I saw this on today’s episode of Good Mythical Morning. Didn’t expect you to try them but make sense as these flavors like horse meat, fugu, and maggot cheese do in fact have some history to them. For the topic of eating horse meat, I actually would eat horse if giving the opportunity.
They definitely sell horse meat in Italy
I remember my dad telling a story that he once had a British girlfriend and when she came over to Belgium my grandmother gave her horse meat .... it didn't end well :p
But like you said horse meat is still commonly eaten in europe and I remember going to restaurants in Brussels known for their horse steak. It's very lean meat and I've noticed recently we have quite a lot of lean meats that we eat on bread. Filet d'anvers & filet d'ardennes springing to mind as being lean but quite spiced.
Of course our bread is a lot less sweet than american ones so it's a good match but with sweeter bread the sweetness would overpower the taste of the meat. I remember when I was very young there were restaurants serving rat but that was banned in the 90's I believe ... my dad said it tasted like rabbit meat. They also put it on the menu as water rabbit :p
Wasn't that specificly muskrat?
And as i can remember, atleast in the netherlands, it was banned because their populations couldn't otherwise be sustained.
My relatives found the taste to be more like wild hare than rabbit.
Edit; spelling
I feel like if you don't want to at least try the local food, maybe you shouldn't date someone from there! I definitely want to try horse when I go to europe
Horse meat being illegal was overturned federally in 2011 and is only so in certain states; also it's more so the sale of it, because horse slaughter is unregulated by the FDA. But yes horse meat (in texture also) is very similar to venison. It also can be important to some people religiously, myself included, and personal slaughter and consumption is just treated more or less as wild game.
I was wondering about that - it struck me as it would be quite similar to Venison ... and correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Native Americans eat horse meat as well? I think it's just a matter of personal impression and preference, really. As to Pope Gregory ... he clearly didn't pay much attention to his New Testament reading or he'd see that many of those Levitical taboos were overturned.
The main eversion to eating horse in America is its association with fraudulent substitution and mystery meat. There are some fairly notable scare stories of horse being labeled as beef or pork. If horse was properly prepared and labeled as a delicacy rather than a cheap substitute.
This!
@@jacobb5484 yea weve had cases in New Zealand of meat from Europe contaminated with horse, it was found through DNA testing the meat.
@@A.Martin Ah, yes the suprise horse meat Findus scandal. Really disgusting exploitation of regulation by processed food companies.
I live in Japan. We have fugu as well as horse sashimi (basahi). Fugu is honestly kinda tasteless. Horse meat is actually really pretty good.
Is it true that fugu makes your mouth tingle due to the small amount of poison that is still in the edible part of the fish? For that reason, fugu has always fascinated me but sadly I do not live in Japan.
I agree on both. I had fugu once and i think it was the sashimi that tasted less of all I tried so far. I think it's about the kick, that it could kill you if it's done wrong.
Love to Japan from Germany. Really miss it!
Zaru Udon to tempura 🤤
@@Kelly_Grey I lived in Japan for a year and a half and had fugu prepared several ways (sashimi, tempura, and hotpot). My mouth never tingled, even a little bit. Pretty sure if there's enough toxin left to make your mouth tingle, there's enough to do some damage. Also, if you ever do try it, go for the hotpot. The sashimi version is super mild, tempura usually has bones in it and is kinda weirdly sweet, but the hotpot is very tasty.
@@Kelly_Grey honestly I highly doubt that since less than a drop can be lethal to a human. Not only that but if I recall correctly the poison is only found in (some of) the organs.
@@Kelly_Grey the meat has never made my mouth tingle, but they sometimes make a drink with the dried fins roasted for a few seconds and then soaked in alcohol. That stuff is tingly
I really love what you do here. Also I admire your willingness to step far out of your comfort zone to examine the stranger items you find. Your videos are educational, inspiring and highly amusing. Also, yourvwork is very well presented and prepared most professionally. Please keep making these.
Next summer my brother and I are planning to make garum. Godz above we are foolish old men for even considering this.
Foolish, or bold adventurers? 😁
As a small child, I called corned beef “horse meat.” As to why I called it horse meat I haven’t a clue, but I loved my horse meat! 🥩 I would go to grocery store with my Dad and always asked our butcher, Clarance, for horse meat. He smile and give a piece of corned beef. He even wrapped my horse meat in a separate package just for me. Of course, the people around us would give me a curious smile. Probably thought I was an addlepated child. LOL 😂
Get some New Zealand corned mutton it's to die for.
It's curious as to me (italian) roast beef was horse 😄
My French wife's family calls corned beef " Boite de singe" or tin of monkey meat it comes from the first world War where the French didn't recognise the meat and couldn't read the label. But in certain areas of Northern France it is still enjoyed as a ragu cooked with bacon a bouquets garni and potatoes.
Its really good and I think the recipe is an ancestor of an American army dish.
I bought a can of imported corned beef once that smelled like a horse. Didn't taste good.
Reminds me of when I first heard people mention filet mignon and for the longest time thought that they were eating flamingoes.
'Gamey' flavor people are used to in venison is mostly caused by poor shooting and poorer handling during butchering... if you half ass shot a cow, let it run around for a few minutes, didn't properly bleed the carcass, and didn't handle the meat properly it would taste a heck of a lot more gamey than you're used to compared to the common supermarket beef.
Someone gets it. It is exactly like you said. I remember eating deer stew that was almost black, and tasted like cooked blood that you left sitting in a rabbit-cage for a day. Lol
@@МагнусПерунов that sounds kind of awful to my palate, unless that was intentional. I do like a good venison steak, though I had a neighbor from Louisiana who made a Cajun-style venison jerky which was amazing
@@МагнусПерунов Very graphic... but spot-on, LOL
I process my own deer and unless I tell people they think it's beef, not "gamey" at all.
Properly processed venison tastes like grass-fed beef.
I genuinely had to ask myself “is it weird to have eaten horse?” when I saw this title. Apparently in the English-speaking countries, yes? I find it hilarious as horse meat salami is not uncommon at all in Poland, if you look for it 😂
I live in the US and it's always confused me. Like it's okay to eat cows and pigs but we draw the line at horses, and make fun of Asian countries who eat dogs and south Americans who eat guinea pigs. Why not just legalize all meat and let people decide if they don't have the constitution to consume a specific animal? I know why one individual might choose not to eat horses or dogs because they had a pet horse or dog, but to make it illegal and taboo? That's just weird. I had a pet potbellied pig as a kid and I still eat pork, and I would never say it should be illegal for other people to choose to eat pork because I loved my pet pig. It blows my mind the way people justify these double standards of what is too cute and lovable to eat. Pigs and chickens are as cute as kittens and puppies and cows and horses are almost the same damn thing, but people have their delusions.
@@-desertpackrat I keep pet chickens and eat chicken as well.
I just think if you designate an animal as a pet, it's usually off limits (barring certain circumstances). Also, chicken are heckin' cannibalistic, I can literally share KFC with them with little issue!
Fugu is interesting and while chefs claim the version raised without poison isn't as good. Well, the diamond industry claims that artificial diamonds are as good as natural ones so I'll wait on a double blind for the fish flavor thing.
My grandfather made a point of buying top quality Stilton and Shropshire Blue every mid winter and yes it had maggots . The cheese maturing process in cellars took ages and thus the high price. Modern commercial blue cheese often has the mould veins introduced artificialy to speed things up.
Eating Horse was a sacrificial event in Ireland at the crowning of the High King and as the Horse is a sacred animal both to Celts and Saxons would not be an everyday event hence the Tabu. Rhiannon would not approve.
Horse Sausage slices on bread and butter is actually quite popular in Norway.
I for one loves lightly roasted bread with butter, with a tiny bit of salt, and then the horse sausage. Its super yum!
When I was a child and the family was struggling financially, my dad went Black Angus Beef in Vancouver, BC, and purchased horsemeat, he admitted it years later that we didn't even notice the difference. Also, you can purchase horsemeat in select Quebec grocery stores. I personally don't see a problem with eating horsemeat when alternative meats are more expensive.
It can also be more ethical as horse meat gets more tender and flavourful as the animal ages, so it can live an entire full life and then we can enjoy it after it's died. Plus it's sweeter and much more interesting than beef or pork in my opinion.
Horse is delicious. I had a braised horse dish in Strasbourg and it was one of the best meals of my life. Lean without being dry, flavorful and not at all greasy, perfect for a winter dinner.
It makes sense because horses are mostly muscle and not a lot of fat, while cows are basically the opposite.
In France "chevaline" is readily available. My understanding was that eating horses was encouraged during the 19th century. With the advent of so many people moving to the cities, beef was inaccessible to the poor. Yet there were plenty of horses used for transportation and drayage, so those excess or not useful (due to age or injury) horses were butchered for protein.
My first video as a new subscriber! I’ve been binging your videos and they’ve all been fantastic and informative... and somewhat hunger inducing.
Welcome!
As a military member stationed in Sicily, we would take people out to the panini stands in the middle of the night and introduce them to “cavalo” sandwich. And watch them eat it when you tell them what it is.
The best philly “steak” sandwich I ever had was then sliced horse steak, peppers, onions, and provolone cheese on herbed Focaccia. Sooo good!
i guess you could call it a “filly” cheesesteak
@@vandilore ☺😆😂🤣🙄
Yeah, I don't get why people are so squeamish about horse meat, it's honestly much more ethical than beef or pork, as the animal can live it's entire life well and the meat just gets better anyways, you don't need to kill it young for it to be tender or flavourful.
doing that is dangerous. i'm in the military too and one of my biggest fears is having coworkers do that to me, only to find out they made me eat cat meat. i'd kms afterwards, not even joking.
I'm vegan and even I don't get the "uuh, it's horse" thing.. it's meat prepared for human consumption, nbd.
Same with rabbit and bunny. Even dog or cat and insects.
I don't get it.
I went to Germany 6 years ago for a high school trip and had the chance to try a horsemeat burger at a summer fair in a small town on the Elbe (I wanna say Bleckede but I could be wrong). Honestly it was really good, I remember it being really juicy and a bit softer and chewier than I expected but a perfectly fine burger, went well enough with fries and a Sprite anyway. Definitely recommend people try it if they get the chance.
Apparently you have never loved a horse.
@tessdurberville711 I love horses but would try one in a heartbeat. Nothing wrong with being open minded and open to different cultural traditions
Max: The old grey mare she ain’t what she used to be.
Me: spitting out my food, even though I wasn’t eating anything.
I did NOT expect this crossover. I’m glad Mythical Kitchen sent the chips to you.
I’ve hade horse steak in Kazakhstan before. It was delicious. A little tougher than cow, and a slightly stronger flavour. But I figure most people wouldn’t notice the difference if they didn’t already know.
I've had horse meat, in Switzerland, southern Germany and also Quebec. I've had it as sausage, prosciutto and steak. I found it to be not overly gamey or strong, similar to beef or kangaroo probably - but I come from Australia and we're used to eating grass-fed meats here. I'm a big fan of lamb, and tend to find beef a bit too mild and boring tasting, so I might have a preference for gamey meats. I bought the horse steak because I was travelling alone, and only staying in Montreal and Quebec City for like, a few days in each, and the only meat I could buy in the supermarket in small quantities rather than family sized packs was game meat, so I had bison and horse. I liked bison too but couldn't tell you anything distinct about it.
I’ve only had Horse as a steak.....I ordered Steak and Frites in a restaurant just outside Paris and when it came it clearly wasn’t beef.
I asked the restauranteur if it was Horse when he came to check on us, he said it was, I told him it was the best horse steak I’d ever had and could I get another beer. Good eatin’
There is still a horse butcher in Munich. (Some decades ago there were many more)
Bought some meat for a roast from them. It is like you said: very similar to beef but more red and lean. I really like it.
I really want to go to Kazakhstan, mainly for reasons other than food, but definitely the food is also a reason (no dish in particular; I just like trying new things). Apparently horse is everywhere; the default appetiser is a big platter of horse meat, and cooking with horse is as common as cooking with any other kind of more-conventional red meat. It makes sense that these people have a matter-of-fact, unsentimental view of horses. There is great value and relationship with such animals, but also, anything that can serve as food shouldn't be wasted. It's a laudable outlook.
I saw horse meat at a grocery store in New Brunswick the other day. Seems like the French people love that shit. I really wanna try it. Can’t believe it’s illegal in US
did you say kangaroo
I love how Max just eats illegal food sent to him by strangers.
Josh Scherrer spearheaded the the project, whom he knows well.
I'm just really appreciating the art on the horse chip bag.
Horses are brown, potatoes are brown, potato chip bags have potatoes peel into chips, horse chip bags. Brilliant
Slightly morbid, but cool. Thanks for pointing it out!
My dad used to hunt deer during the beef shortage of the early 1970s and that venison was never gamey. He told me that venison is only that way when the deer was stressed before dying. It's adrenaline that makes the meat tough and taste funny. He was a major proponent of the clean and humane kill, with a single shot to the head, preferably through the eye. Dad was a very good shot.
True. I eat lots of venison and i would not say it is gamey.
My uncle and his sons went deer hunting every season. (They had a large family. He was a master brick layer, which is a seasonal job in western PA.) Main reason was to have meat on the table. My aunt canned a lot of the venison. (It was very good.)
Some of his friends would offer him their deer. He would accept only those that were properly field dressed.
I think most people that call meat "gamey" are too used to meat that has zero flavor, like factory-raised chicken versus chicken that eats what chickens should.
@@jacquelyns9709 exactly a lot of gamey flavors can come from poor or improper field dressing. Also can come from diet of the animal. It also can and most commonly is a result of how the meat is cooked.
Yeah, my Cat mixed his chicken herd with with ornamental, wild,and Egg Layer chickens so the very cool looking to very funky looking offspring is kind of a crap shoot if it smels gamey or like really good free range organic
Even though he past away desedents of his flock still come out of the woods and make a march around my property stopping at my front door, back house front door(tenants throw rice), Studio Front door(tenants throw rice) and my back door before going back in the woods 3 times a day(remaining cats picking off any straggler chicks)
Not the Kakuna in the back for the Maggot Cheese. 🤣
Next year: "Horse meat chips found to have actual horse meat"
For anyone interested in trying sweet, forbidden (to those in the US) candy flavors, Lofty Pursuits is a candy-maker in Tallahassee Florida that makes hard candies using Victorian equipment and they sell a mix or two of hard candies with flavors that are hard to find (horehound) or forbidden/illegal (black currant). I highly recommend getting their candy as well as their RUclips Channel too!!
Wait. What! Blackcurrant is illegal in the USA???? It's a UK staple!
@@duchesssunset29 The fruit itself is illegal because the plants are carriers for a disease that was killing pine trees. But we still have jams, juices, and candies and stuff.
My favorite thing is his thousand yard stare after the first bite while he's trying to figure out the flavor and/or if he likes it.
Yes lol his face always tells a whole story 😆
Horse meat is readily found in supermarkets in the Netherlands and Belgium. It tastes quite like beef, although it's not as tender.
In Finland horse meat is not really available as meat-meat from the butcher but cold cuts (sausages and such) made from it are available. Very tasty, more flavor than beef.
I dunno which supermarkets you visit, but I don't think I've ever seen seen horse in the supermarket. I've only seen it at butchers
@@m.janski Hema used to have the smoked and sliced stuff. I haven't checked recently if they still carry it.
@@m.janski My local Jumbo stocks it, but I guess it might depend on the region you live in.
You can actually get horse meat sashimi, with different levels of marbling even, in Japan! Stumbled upon one restaurant by accident because the poster outside looked just like fish sashimi 😅
So tasty, one of my favorite when we were allowed to go to izakaya.
The original tartare dish is horse meat, not beef.
I bought three boxes of these as gifts and they were a huge hit at our weekend party! Thanks for the holiday help!
I really didn't expect to see Mythical Chef Josh's food creations on a refined channel such as this. Total opposite energies lmao. But I had to check the video out when I saw the bags in the preview window.
It's kind of weird to me that there aren't more Mythical fans swarming the comments. I got stoked when I saw the title, and then noticed there was almost no one talking about Josh.
Same here
Came here as a Mythical fan
I can't stop thinking about what it would be like if they collaborated.
I love finding fellow Mythical Beasts in other channels that i like ☺☺☺
I kinda feel that Max should go for a culinary vacation to Europe once all this covid is over, there is a great many things to taste over here and there is often local specialties that can both surprise and delight. For instance do the tiny Canary island Gran Canaria have surprisingly great food, Gotland in Sweden makes wonderful saffron pancakes with salmbärs (a kind of local black raspberry) jam. Malta have Fennek (a rabbit dish) and so on. That is just a few random things. Haggis looks disgusting (also forbidden in US) but isn't bad at all.... The list just goes on and a history food tour would make a great series for the channel.
I don't think horse meat is anything special but I can't say it taste like venison. It is closer to beef but with a strong addition of something hard to describe so I don't thinks the chips got it right. I don't see why it should be forbidden anywhere though unlike the other 2 which makes more sense.
I am Swedish, horse is mainly eaten here on sandwiches, often in sausage form.
I don't like it very much myself but it isn't terrible or anything.
I think that'd a great idea.
In the Netherlands we have "paarden rookvlees" which is smoked horsemeat very thinly sliced, you can get the same but then made from normal cows meat. And have "paarden biefstuk" which is a beef steak but has a stronger, deeper taste. I used to be more common in the past, but in general although I think eating horse meat is dying out with the generations.
this would be amazing :)
I've always thought that since when Max started the channel. It would definitely make a great 1M subscriber episode!
@@telebubba5527 : My understanding is that horses are more vulnerable to bad feed than cattle, so I'd hazard a guess that it will _continue_ to die out in the Netherlands, and likely the world in general. Horses seem to have really just been better than cattle for speed reasons than anything else, and their speed just isn't really important anymore.
Haggis itself is not forbidden in the US, the "lights", or lungs, in the mix is illegal. So you can make haggis, but you cannot include lungs.
Interesting note about fugu is that the licensing to prep it was put in place by general Douglas MacArthur. This was due to a rash of fugu poisonings across Japan in the post-war era cuz in those days if you prepared it you just threw the organs out in the trash and people would go in the trash and take fish organs and cook and eat them and well fugu liver is the most poisonous part of the fish.
In western Europe, particularly the British Isles, there are strong cultural associations between monarchs, the land they rule, and horses. It was probably regarded as close to cannibalism, and in the British Isles probably considered worse in some circles. That might have hung on and offered firm footing for the Church's ban.
Very, very close, according to Geraldus Cambrensis in ~1200 CE, who reported seeing an Irish king in, hem, congress with a horse during a ceremony. There are thoughts that he was making it up as he really didn't like the Irish.
@@hjalfi It's a curious and probably unanswerable issue by now. However, one thing that comes through a lot of western European myth is that horses are closely associated with land, and in fact, with women, e.g. the goddesses Epona, Rhiannon, Etain, and others. What's striking about these is that they're all Celtic. If you poke around, there's a pattern that holds broadly, in that south of the Alps, the Sun is associated with male concepts and the Moon with female. North of the Alps the celestial bodies get a sex change. The Moon is male, and the sun female and this holds across several linguistic groups. The point the digression is that the same holds true of horses, which are associated with Poseidon and Ares, and the Roman equivalents. So, breaking that linkage between women and land would have been a means of thoroughly disrupting the "pagan" societies to the north.
Eh, at least in my part of the British Isles there really isn't a taboo associated with eating horse other than "It's a French thing", more an availability issue. We have a ludicrous number of horses per person but that number doesn't even come vaguely close to the number of other, significantly less difficult to raise animals. If it *was* a cultural association with deities then we'd probably have eaten them *more* readily than most realise, just to screw with the heads of the occupiers. That, the idea that "As healthy as a horse" is one of the greatest oxymorons known to mankind and the fact local dishes can, and do, use pretty much *anything* would lead me to doubt that.
I would tend to go with the opinion that they were both too useful and too hard to raise to be seen primarily as food, unlike a pig or a sheep. Also it's worth bearing in mind that we didn't eat cows often until around the 11th century for pretty much the same reason - not as cost effective to raise. I was raised (and still live) in farming country where the idea of rabbit or pigeon doesn't even slow us down, we hunted them for pocket money as children and took a reduced bounty so we could keep the carcasses to feed the family.
I would say that practicality determined more than some cultural taboo as I'm fairly certain that, even today, most of the folks in my area wopuldn't even bat an eyelid at the thought of eating horse. It tastes good but other meats taste better and are significantly more readily available. Like venison which I would take over horse any day and we have local herds.
Eat the rich ... and their horses.
"Is it worth risking your life?" They've combined potato chips and the flavor, so definitely not. 😁
I watch a lot of RUclips videos. Tasting History is by far my favorite
Horse is pretty good! It's pretty common here in Belgium and is a decent alternative to steak as it is slightly better for you. Thin slices of smoked horse are also great as charcuterie
I'd love to get my hands on a whole piece of horse meat, where I live I only ever find ground meat. It's good but it's kind of limiting to only have it in this form.
WHO'S THAT POKEMON!?
Also if Max doesn't upload tomorrow, the fugu got to him.
If fugu gets you, you know about it very quickly :P.
I'm sort of wondering why quilfish wasn't used instead of koffing.
@@asmith8692 Probably didn't have a Quilfish plush so Koffing is a decent substitute.... I think.
So I recognize koffing and kakuna but what is the third / horse Pokémon?
@@redbeard5939 yeah I don’t recognize the third one either! New generation? I’m “old” lol. I wish they had qwilfish, underrated little cutie
In my country Horse meat is considered a delicacy. You can not get it in normal stores you need to specially order the meat from a farm.
As someone who tasted it, its ok.
And there is a burger restaurant in Ljubljana Slovenia where you can get Horse burgers called Horse Burger.
I've always thought the taboo against horse in Western culture was at least partially due to their perceived status as a companion animal such as dogs and cats, but also due to their breeding cycle. Horses take longer to reproduce than cattle, swine, etc. I've watched some old Iron Chef Japan episodes that include horse as an ingredient and it seems to be considered flavorsome. The comparison to venison gave me a good reference point. I could not see myself trying Casu Marzu, however.
ETA: Fugu. The non toxic type seems to defeat the historical purpose, whereby the consumer would ingest just enough toxin to give a tingly mouthfeel along with the flavor profile. Am I wrong?
It probably has something in common with the reason some are willing to play Russian Roulette.
I was under the impression that was still the draw of Fugu, or at least was until very very recently?
Yes, that's what I recall reading about fugu too - and I bet that part of the experience is not replicated in the chips, either!
@@dontbefatuousjeffrey2494 that's a very excellent username 👌
I want to see a collaboration with Emmy and Max with this sort of food.
Here in Sicily (southernmost Italy), eating horse meat is considered fully normal, especially in some provinces (Catania is the most famous about it). Those chips would sell like crazy over here! 😂
In my opinion, not eating horse but having no remorse when eating lambs, piglets, etc. is a big piece of hypocrisy, and I've been a horse rider for over 10 years!
Cavallo Bistecca?
Eh, everybody has food taboos from the culture grew up with to some degree. In the US most people would react to being served horse the same way they'd react to being told they'd been served the family dog. Same with the very tasty rabbit. Not to mention it's hard to eat what isn't avaible. Lamb isn't available in my region except around Easter. Even then it's very expensive.
@@HeraldHealer I don't think America has a rabbit taboo. It's not sold in stores but it's a popular small game animal. On the other side of the spectrum I've heard of it served at fancy restaurants
@@wanderingwonder111 : There's a bit of a taboo against eating rabbit, though it would probably prove to be similar in strength to the eating of squirrel, and situational (e.g. tell them that it's a dish from an area that traditionally eats rabbit, and prepared by a local butcher, and you'll see much less resistance).
I'm from the Eastern Siberia, and was just shocked to hear 'illegal horse meat', because it is probably the most basic meat for the local traditional cuisine and is widely consumed to these days. You learn something new every day :)
Horse meat is pretty common in Sweden but in grocery stores it's usually called "hamburger meat" when it's in the smoked sandwich/deli form.. its kinda like a mix between roast beef, venison and pastrami, pretty tasty :)
I gotta say I'm pretty put off fugu after seeing it being prepared... I'm a meat lover through and through but the way fugu is prepared is frickin brutal....
You wouldn't eat a tank, so you don't eat your horse! Perfect logic😅 I remember seeing people on tv years ago who ate that cheese... It was a look 🤢
I would love to see a Native American recipe sometime Max!
Yes please do max it is the least we can do for stealing their land
my brain is horrible I read that thinking Native American flavor lol
He did "Aztec Chocolate - Blood & Spice," "Unwrapping Aztec Tamales | The Tamale Wars," and "Quesadillas Cernidas & Aztec Maize" (he probably should do an episode about native cuisine that isn't Aztec ... go north to say the Sioux or the various longhouse peoples like the Weydant or Iroquois ... or go south to the Incas maybe ... find the oldest potato recipe!). In his little history bits he has discussed native recipes and even pre-contact native recipes wrt to topics like cornbread. Also, ancient Recipes With Sohla did an episode on Pemmican and Sohla's Aztec Taco Tuesday (with hot chocolate!).
THIS. Something from what is now N or S America
That's like saying you want a European recipe; there's not just one food tradition to the native peoples of the north american continent.
As a big fan of the mythical kitchen and chef josh, I’m so happy to see my favourite historical food guy, trying something josh came up with lol.
I’m just so impressed with your chip bag opening skills! 😁
Max Miller "you wouldn't eat a tank"
Boris from Russia "hold my vodka!"
Tanks are actually best eaten when cooked in a cocktail named after this Vyacheslav guy
I didn't realize it's illegal to have horse meat in the US. We have plenty of it here in Canada, but few eat it regularly. The question is, do they taste neighsty?
I never make puns, but I do it for you, Max.
It isn't, just rare to find.
My father was born in 1932 and raised in Oklahoma and Park CIty, UT. According to him, horse was commonly available in stores up until the 1950s.
Horse is generally an extremely lean meat. This is why it lacks the 'fatty' flavor, and why it compares so well to venison!
a couple "fun" notes about casu marzu. the name translates to "rotten cheese", for obvious reasons. The maggots will sometimes jump if they're lively.
The horse meat tabu is solely a J.C.I. item. In cultures never afflicted by those 3 religions, no tabu against horse meat. Horse meat is fairly comparable to beef, just leaner and sweeter.
I've actually eaten donkey in China. It was like in thin slices on a cold plate like a charcuterie. Very nicely spiced and flavorful.
lol i love how you have stuffed animals of a maggot, a blowfish and a horse in the background.
I knew an older fellow who, as a boy, had eaten manatee in the early 1950's, as it was frequently "accidental" by-catch in nets. He said the only comparison he could make was to excellent prime rib.
Dang. On a cruise I went to one of those dolphin swims in Cancun and part of the tour included being with a manatee. I asked the guy if he had any idea how it tasted (because I was seriously curious not that I wanted a steak on the spot). The guy and my family looked at me as if I was devil in the flesh... never got an answer so, thank you for the reference!!!!
Wow that’s sad but… I could see them tasting good 😅 Poor creatures though, they have a tough lot in the modern world
I know you don’t often have guests but I would love to see you talk with Chef Josh from Good Mythical Morning/Good Mythical Kitchen. I believe he worked with MSCHF to create these chips. He also does a lot of cooking episodes involving food from the past...but perhaps in an ever so slightly more manic way. 😊
Check out Josh’s podcast! Max was a guest on the 3/10/21 episode of A Hotdog is a Sandwich
@@elenimijalis1168 Awesome! I’ve listened to a few episodes of a Hotdog is a Sandwich but haven’t kept up with it. I will definitely check it out!
Josh did his episode for the chips on the Mythical Kitchen channel on Monday(11/15). It was very informative.
I live in Germany near the french border and on the farmers market there is a special horse butcher. He visits this marked like once a month and sells his produce. Sausages, minced meat, steaks, roasts etc. Good tasty meat.