Once you know it, you can't unknow it

So, they eat horses here. I actually am not as freaked up by this as I thought I might be. I love horses with the same passion that I have loved them with since I was child. When my parents told me they were buying me a horse, it was the happiest day of my life. Of course, they never did buy me that horse, but for a few blissful weeks I knew what it was to think that I was going to have a horse, and it was wonderful. I can only imagine how insane with joy I would have been if my lousy, neglectful parents had kept their promise. 

But I digress. 

What I'm trying to say is that the idea of people eating horses doesn't upset me unduly, though I don't think I'll be trying it. Having said all that, I was fine with the idea of eating horse in theory, right up until I went for a walk the other day and saw a paddock full of horses;

So noble. So majestic. I swooned with pleasure, and in my head I'd already picked out which horse I was going to keep, and what I was going to call him.

Then I walked a bit further, and saw a paddock full of happy little Thelwell-esque ponies;

Awww. Look at the baby...

Then I remembered the shop at the end of our street;

The carneceria de caballo. The horse butcher. It put a little bit of a dampener on my day. I'm not saying for a minute that I think that eating horse meat is wrong as such, and I'm not even sure that all or indeed any of those particular horses were destined for the carneceria. And anyway, I eat too much beef and lamb to be in any position to criticise the eating of horse meat. In fact, I'm not really sure what I am trying to say. In short it comes down to the fact that as a former vegan/vegetarian who is now an enthusiastic carnivore again, I am still somewhat conflicted about eating meat (I say that, but even as I type this I am waiting for the meat pie I just made to finish cooking,). I suppose I'm just commenting on the fact that we take eating cow, sheep, pig and chicken so much for granted, and yet when we're presented with a culture that eats an animal that we have some taboo against eating (horse, dog, monkey, guinea pig) we're so quick to judge. I don't know. I promise that the next thing I post won't involve such tedious soul-searching. It might even be a picture of a fluffy dog. They don't eat dog here.