HORSEMEAT

A couple of things have struck me about the wave of panic that seems to have hit European consumers and authorities over the past week, after it was discovered that meat sold as beef in fact contained horsemeat.

The first is the mind-boggling complexity of the European food chain. It seems to be quite common for meat to be sold through six or seven companies in six or seven Member States before it eventually gets to the consumer in the form of a pre-prepared lasagne. Why this should be so is not immediately obvious. But it is undoubtedly an awfully long way from the practice of even 50 years ago, when people tended to eat what their neighbour had reared.

The second is the absolute revulsion people seem to have about horse flesh, particularly when set against the meat from cows, pigs or sheep. I have eaten horsemeat once, when I was in France. I didn't think it was brilliant; on the other hand, although it was a bit odd, I didn't think it was awful. Yet it seems in the current climate to be treated on a par with rat or snake. True, there is a labelling issue; people should be able to purchase what is purported to be sold. But this "scandal" is not nearly the same as (for instance) Perrier water containing carcinogens.

A butcher in rural Denmark has admitted that for the past 20 years, he has been delivering meat to pizzerias that was a mixture of beef and horsemeat. As he has pointed out, nobody has died or even gotten ill from eating it, and the meat was properly labelled. Having said that, he has also admitted that he won't be supplying any more of the mixture in the near future.

Walter Blotscher