Party Vibe

this is something I have been wondering about

here in Suffolk there is a long-standing tradition of sausage-making.

This is wholly understandable – its a good way of using up offcuts of meat around slaughtering time.

But bear in mind that the practice of Trading Standards and Maff/Defra closely checking exactly what goes into a sausage is a recent phenomenon (perhaps from the the 60s).

Although clearly butchers didn’t want to poison their paying customers and there was at least some checking of cleanliness/sanitary procedures, everything was left to market forces and the laws of supply and demand, meat was in short supply from end of WW II until the late 1950s, and most species look the same once they’ve been through an industrial mincer..

Anyone thinking what I’m thinking?

well not 100% horse all of the time (as the animals would be used for transport) but when one becomes “available” – what (other than consience) was stopping people bulking out meat supplies in sausages, pies and other similar products?

pretty much what was happening in the 1930s to 1950s due to the effects of war…

I’ve read a few sources claiming that the more recent horsemeat taboo in Britain is little to do with animal welfare (especially when you consider how many horses the racing fraternity get through every year) – but more because eating horsemeat was seen as a sign of poverty.