The recent scandal over horse meat found in fast food hamburgers and IKEA meatballs made us wonder. Maybe it’s time to rebrand horse meat. Maybe with a new name the meat could be enjoyed openly, and there wouldn’t be so much incentive to trick consumers by trying to pass it off as beef.
It’s not surprising that the horror over eating equine cuisine seems to be strongest in the Anglophone world. Often, in English, we refer to meat names with Frenchified terms. It makes eating the poor creatures more palatable. So, we eat veal, rather than baby cow meat. It’s pork tripe in your noodle soup, not pig intestines. These French culinary terms were introduced into Middle English and they’ve stuck. English speakers prefer this kind of distance when eating animal flesh.
So maybe a new name would make all the difference for horse meat. We’ve started a naming game on our site PopNamer.com to come up with the perfect name. This website lets you vote on ideas for new names and submit your own. Recent games include naming the OfficeMax/Office Depot merger, coming up with a new way to describe Facebook addiction, and an appropriately eco-friendly term for the new Starbucks reusable cup.
Here are some of the horse meat names visitors have come up with so far:
- Filly Cheesesteak
- Quarter horse with cheese
- Unbridled Delight
- Salisbury Steed
- Chevalia
- Equinox
Visit PopNamer.com to vote on the best names and add your own.
