Eating horse and Scotch eggs

There are two places in the city that serve horse meat. I guess there continues to be a general aversion to eating the flesh of creatures more commonly known as pets, because when I gleefully ordered an entree of horse tartare on Wednesday night, my 3 dining companions choked on their Pernods. What followed was a rush of unintelligent babbling about how it's wrong to eat horse, like it's wrong to eat dog or cat. Of course, I dismiss this logic out of hand, seeing no difference between any of these lovely creatures and the vital beauty and gentle cuddliness of pig, chicken, cow and fish. Have you ever delighted in the fervent nuzzling of a goat taking food from your palm? Of a puffy yellow chick at the egg hatchery in the science museum? Have you read Charlotte's Web? Did it turn you against a good roti, rotisserie chicken or extra order of bacon at breakfast? I myself am so fond of the docile wet stare of all ruminants that I've been known to weep spontaneously when seeing them represented in art (see Caravaggio's Rest on the Flight into Egypt). It doesn't stop me from eating them.

Generally, the French eat horse while the Brits abhor the practice. Leaning on the French quarter of my ancestry, then, (the Celtic remainder is just happy to have a whiskey afterwards), I have as much issue consuming horseflesh as I do consuming chicken, pork, turkey, elk, moose, snake or insects. Talk to me about eating farmed Chinese fish or inhumanly slaughtered beef and I'll rant till I drop, but nibbling on cavallo (so eloquent in Italian) is no biggie. And at this small, unpretentious, perfectly French bistro in the heart of Chinatown, the horse tartare is a treat I cannot resist. The meat itself is almost sweet and not at all gamey, and when all mixed up with Dijon and cornichons it's absolutely lovely.

Rarer still, though less contentious, is the Scotch egg, served only during pro soccer games at the lakeside arena. Brian and I shimmied through streams of fans in search of the one concessions stand where we would find the treasure we sought. And there it was, $4.20 of hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage meat, battered and deep fried. It feels reckless to eat one without a defibrillator within 10 metres, but it does match perfectly with sports-arena draft beer.

Other than that, the home front cuisine of late has been particularly underwhelming. On one of the most humid evenings of the summer I slow-simmered (because I love to add steam to humidity) San Marzano tomato sauce and it has gamely formed the base for most meals since -- plain on pasta, with a can of Italian tuna on pasta, cold on crackers after a night of drinking. Bio-K, crackers and cheese filled out pretty well the rest of my in-home dining. I suppose my ex-domicile culinary abandon makes up for it.