The Best Horse Meat in Paris?
 

And I mean the very best raw horse meat in Paris - sold in places I've seen with a neon-lit picture of a horse' head and the words something like "Chevalline" - or Horse Meat shop.

My French relatives tell me that once there were many of these as men thought wolfing down raw horse meat boosted their virility but this practice seems to have largely died out.

But as an OAP needing a boost once in a while on my upcoming trip, before visiting Pigalle, I'd like to get my hands on the best horse meat in Paris and by best I mean best acting.

Can anyone help me out?

Do any French monsieurs still eat raw horse meat?

And do not think I am horsing around on this post but an dead serious!

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/02/15/...ke-on-scandal/

Well yes there are still some French guys who are horse meat aficionados!

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/glob...e-bridled/9911

says is getting difficult to find but back alley butchers have it!

You might be interested in checking out the following blog:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/glob...e-bridled/9911

Apparently there are only 10 shops in Paris that sell horse meat.

When I moved to my street, there were at least 3 horse butchers. Now there is a not a single one, and I don't even know where to find one.

Basically, what finished them off was when it was permitted to sell horsemeat in supermarkets. Before then, beef and horse could not be sold in the same establishment for exactly the same reasons as the recent scandal across Europe.

Haven't yet read the links provided... but a Belgian friend of mine was on the Dukan diet a couple of years ago (before it was translated to English.) He translated parts of it into English for me and I was surprised to see that horse meat was on the list of proteins (said it was delicious!)

I will keep my eyes peeled for Chevalline shops but won't be entering them.

I know that on rue de la Roquette there is an old chevaline which has keep the horsehead décor and the name but it is just a snack bar now.

There were horse burgers on the menu at two places we ate in Paris last month, and I may have seen it, as Kerouac notes, in the local Monoprix.

Too bad you aren't going to Verona. Everyone had horse and donkey too, in a variety of preparations.

"There were horse burgers on the menu at two places we ate in Paris last month"

Are you sure?

"Hamburger a cheval" is quite common on menus and always means a bull-burger (though I don't sense that the French stigmatise cowbeef in quite the way the British food industry does) with a fried egg on top.

I've occasionally double-checked this with waiters, genuinely wanting to taste horsemeat - always sensing a certain "another cleverdick rosbif" note in the waiter's reply.

I have never seen a horse burger anywhere (even back when they existed 30 years ago). I think that Akislander did indeed misunderstand "hamburger à cheval" which is extremely common -- "hamburger with a fried egg riding horseback."

A "horseburger" would be "hamburger <b>de</b> cheval" although since it would not be served with a bun, it would most likely be called a "steak hâché de cheval."

There is a stall selling horse meat at thr Richard Lenoir Market at Bastille on Sudays ahd Thursdays You can't miss itit is large and has a red awning reading Chevalier.

That would be chevaline. A chevalier is a knight. Of course it could also be the name of the butcher.

Kerouac and flanneruk are correct. I mistranslated. I was so pleased to see horse meat on the menu that I missed the idiom.

I have bought and eaten horse meat from a butcher on Salem Street in Boston's North End. I bought it thinking I had bought cheap beef hamburger but recognized the difference when I cooked it. I was too poor to discard it, it tasted fine, so I have subsequently eaten horse and donkey in Italy and donkey sausage in Perigord.

The horse butchers are simply dying out in France because most people buy horsemeat in supermarkets.

BTW, here in Germany, you can buy fresh horse meat on many markets and canned horse meatballs and sauerbraten in most supermarkets. Many snack stands sell horse meat dishes (most popular are sauerbraten and meatballs, usually also served with sauerbraten sauce). Sauerbraten is a perfect way to cook horsemeat because the sour taste matches the slighty sweetish taste of horse meat very well. But I also like to cook colt filet as a steak, of course medium rare.

The Belgian specialty "carbonnades à la flamande" used to be a horse meat stew, but I have noticed in recent years that it is nearly always beef now.