Food Editor Grant Jones eating horse meat in the Orrichette with Ragu di Cavallo
We are told the meat is lean, has a subtle, sweet, distinctive flavour and should be on the menu of every second Italian or French restaurant in town.
Be that as it may, there is only one person in Australia that can sell it, otherwise it has to be done in secrecy, because of the death threats.
There was a restaurant in Melbourne that wanted to serve horse meat but canceled that idea after threats against the chef and a protest outside the restaurant.
But horse meat, like many meats is best when the animal is young (12 to 18 months).
Chef Andrew Stewart with horse carpaccio Source
Perhaps animal activists are protesting the eating of horse meat, but Australia exports 40,000 or more horses each year to be eaten overseas."What we are doing is perfectly legal. There is just an emotional connection to it," said Stewart White from the Australian Association of Food Professionals, who was responsible for the dinner menu.
"We have an aversion to anything Disney made a movie of."
Earlier this year Vince Garreffa of Mondo Di Carne gourmet butchers in Perth presented the country's first horses for human consumption.
But soon after Mr Garreffa was approved to sell it, he received several threats.
Last week Mondo's sent out a vacuum-packed 10kg shipment for some interested food industry professionals to try in Sydney. The meat sells for anything from $19.50 a kilo for mortadella to $90kg for fillet.
The dinner, cooked by two well-known Italian chefs from Sydney, who preferred not to be named, was less of a stunt and more of an experiment.
"It needs help as it is a lean meat," one chef said at the Inner West location, kept secret until the last minute.
Cooked as a minute steak, with salt, pepper and olive oil, it is not unlike venison, but not as gamey, and far superior to kangaroo in my opinion."
