More about food carts - LOL

I just saw this entry in the NY Times%26#39; Metropolitan Diary column:

Dear Diary:

Has anyone else noticed the lunch wagon often parked on or around William Street, offering ';Filly Cheese Steaks';? I chant to myself, each time, ';Please let it be a misspelling ... please let it be a misspelling ... ';

More about food carts - LOL

Bettina---That is so funny!

More about food carts - LOL

Warning:

Those Filly Cheese Steaks can give you the trots.

You better be hungry enough to eat a horse before you order one.

Ah, geez, Voy! Now I%26#39;m just about ROTFL!

lol!!

My mom lived in NYC Chelsea dist for 2 years, and goes on and on about how she loved the vendor carts, so everytime we go lunch is usually a cart then restaurant for dinner. I%26#39;m planning to visit this summer and was looking forward to the carts.. til now lol... gross! Has anyone asked if it%26#39;s a misspelling? Can they sell horse meat? I%26#39;m going veggie this summer lol.

Someone please gallop on down there, jockey for a position in line and check out the menu. As long as they don%26#39;t offer ';The Belmont Special'; or ';Preakness Surprise'; it%26#39;s probably safe (unless they have horseradish sauce)

urgghhhhhh.....

Oh my goodness - LOL! I%26#39;ll have to see if I can find it. And not giggle while looking. Ta. MMM!

everything you probably ever wanted to know about horse meat production and consumption . . . this may change your eating habits re some foods and some countries.

';Most people are not aware that horses are slaughtered in the US for consumption overseas.'; And it%26#39;s all very legal . . .

all-creatures.org/nyca/ch-hor-20060403.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_meat

And you won%26#39;t believe this 1982 article form the New York Times . . .

December 2, 1982

%26#39;HORSEBURGERS%26#39; ON PUSHCART MENU

By MICHAEL GOODWIN

New York City%26#39;s Health Department announced yesterday that it had issued a permit allowing a Connecticut company to sell %26#39;%26#39;horseburgers%26#39;%26#39; and horse-steak sandwiches from pushcarts in midtown Manhattan.

The company, Chevalean Foods, had its first cart on Lexington Avenue, near 53d Street, soon after the announcement and did what its president and vendor, Ronald Corn, called a %26#39;%26#39;fairly good%26#39;%26#39; business %26#39;%26#39;despite rainy weather.%26#39;%26#39; He said he had sold about 50 quarter-pound burgers and steak sandwiches, with the burgers going for 75 cents plain - 85 cents with cheese - and the steak sandwiches for $1.40.

The company is based in Hartford, where Mr. Corn and Morris Later operate the M %26amp; R Packing Company. Mr. Later, the vice president, said they had been slaughtering horses for export to Europe and the Middle East for 10 years and selling sandwiches from carts in Boston, Hartford and New Haven for several months, and that, yes, they had heard lots of jokes.

Counting Patties the Horse Way

Mr. Later said he didn%26#39;t care for the jokes, but he did acknowledge that he had smiled when he heard that he had been accused of selling Belmont steaks. Then there was the time, he said, when a customer approached a cart in New Haven and asked for some patties, which are frozen and sold in bulk.

How many, he was asked. Silently, the man lifted his right foot and pawed the ground three times. The humor was O.K. with him, Mr. Later said, only if it helped people not to be so squeamish about eating horses formerly used for pleasure riding or plowing.

He gets his horses at auctions, riding stables and summer camps. The meat%26#39;s quality, he said, depends on the age and care of the horse, with the older, well-fed ones making a better burger. Most horses under 7 or 8 years of age, he said, had too many muscles.

He conceded that it was a long shot that Americans would take to horsemeat, which is a favorite in many parts of the world. But he is convinced that Americans wouldn%26#39;t be wasting all those horses on glue and pet food if they believed, as he does, that his product has more protein and less fat, and hence cholesterol, than beef. It%26#39;s cheaper, too, he said.

His product is 85 percent horsemeat and 15 percent %26#39;%26#39;choice beef fat,%26#39;%26#39; Mr. Later said. The beef fat gives the meat the taste of beef, he said, adding that both he and his 4-year-old son love it. Another Company Was Scratched

It has been legal to sell horsemeat for human consumption in New York City since at least 1943, but Chevalean has a monopoly for now, according to Bruce Berent, a Health Department spokesman. He said a permit was issued to another company about eight years ago to sell horsemeat, but the company apparently went out of business before it went in.

The law permits the sale of the meat as long as it is not packed, processed or sold at the same location as other meats. It must also be inspected by the United States Department of Agriculture if it is transported across state lines and it must be marked clearly as horsemeat. Signs on the cart operated by Chevalean -the name comes from a combination of the French word for horse and lean - made it clear that Mr. Corn was not dispensing your normal all-beef patties.

John McClung, a spokesman for the Agriculture Department, said there were 16 slaughterhouses in the United States where horses were killed for human consumption. Most of them, he said, are owned by Europeans who export the meat, although some specialty stores in large cities carry it. In 1981, Mr. McClung said, about 280,000 horses were killed for meat, compared with 35 million cattle and 88 million hogs.