by Phil Coleman

Last updated at 11:47, Saturday, 02 March 2013

The national debate over eating horse meat has taken a new twist in Cumbria – as it went on sale legitimately at an event near Penrith.

The meat  was sold during the Historia Originata event at the Rheged Centre.

The trade show, which caters for history professionals and those involved in historical re-enactments, featured a supplier who offered traditionally prepared horse meat dishes.

Martin Cowley, 45, and his wife Suzie, 43, say the ongoing food labelling scandal involving the meat has helped to stimulate interest.

The former chef and his wife set up their business in 2004 after friends they met at re-enactment events happily devoured dishes they prepared that included horse meat “jerky,” which has been dried in the traditional way.

Their products are all licensed and legitimate and are perfectly safe, said Martin, from South Wales.

He said: “The problem people have had with horse meat in recent months is that has been sneaked into products.

“That’s not the case with our horse jerky.

“It is entirely legitimate. People don’t realise that horse meat was regularly eaten by Anglo Saxon people. It was only after the Romans and the Christians came to Britain, in the eighth century, that people stopped eating it.”

Martin said that only at one recent event – one designed to teach people bush-craft – did the organisers object.

Asked if eating the meat was wrong because of the historic partnership between horses and people, Martin replied: “If cows could leap gracefully over fences, and if we could ride them, would you stop eating beef?”

Among the horse products Martin and Suzie sold  was a dish called Black Beauty (flavoured with Guinness and onions) and another called phWar Horse, which includes chillies.

One of the region’s best known horse lovers is the romantic novelist and former Border TV Lookaround reporter Gilly Fraser.

Told about the sale of horse meat at Rheged, she said: “I would definitely not eat horse meat myself and I’d hate to think I’d eaten it.

“On the other hand, once an animal is dead I don’t see any problem with its carcass being eaten by other people.

“What matters – and this applies to horses, cows, sheep, or whatever animal – is that it is treated properly when alive and at the point of its death.”

Martin and Suzie get their horse meat from Kezie Foods in Scotland.

First published at 11:11, Saturday, 02 March 2013
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk