The Real Reason We Don't Eat Horse Meat

So is the horse meat taboo a holdover from the pagan past? If so, why don't other countries, who once venerated the divine twins and their horses, observe the same taboo? The Atlantic argues that it was a question of pragmatism: Continental Europeans began to overlook their old taboo in the early modern period out of pragmatism, while the British could source enough beef and so didn't need to.

By the 1890s, rumors of horseflesh passed off as beef were raising old fears in meatpacking cities like Chicago. Americans briefly swallowed their ancestral horror during the food rationing of World War II, but only ate horse as long as they absolutely needed to. The Atlantic notes that "horse meat" became a political epithet after the war.

In the 1970s, the Bureau of Land Management began selling the wild mustangs they culled in the deserts of Nevada and California to meat wholesalers in Canada and Mexico. In 2006, Congress passed the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, effectively banning the horseflesh trade in American borders; and while Donald Trump did mull lifting the ban during his presidency, taboo seems to have the upper hand. For the foreseeable future, curious Americans will still need to travel to enjoy this curious dish.

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