Horse meat is commonly eaten in France, Italy, Switzerland and Japan, with the Quebecois of Canada also enjoying it. Apparently there is a reason why the English are so squeamish about eating horse meat. I was told that, during the time of Alfred the Great, horse meat was eaten in such large quantities that the breeding stock was killed off. The King kept bringing more animals into England and they always got eaten up so he asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to anathemitise the practice. I don’t think even the English would be this idiotic. The French appetite for horse meat is relatively recent, said to date from the Battle of Eylau in 1807, when the surgeon-in-chief of Napoleon’s Army, Baron Dominique-Jean Larry, advised the starving troops to eat the flesh of horses which had died on the battlefield. The cavalry found whatever they could to flavour the meat and then used their breastplates as cooking vessels.
The horse mushroom is elated to the common field mushroom. The gills start off white and then dull to chocolate brown. It stains yellow, but has a scent of anise, which helps to differentiate it from other mushrooms. It is very delicious, but easily confused with other much less palatable or poisonous mushooms. (If gathering mushrooms you must be absolutely certain what you have before you eat them as many are very poisonous.)
Horse mussel; a large variety of North Atlantic mussel with a purple shell with yellow marks and orange flesh. The flavour is inferior to that of other mussels.
Horseradish is the gnarled, long, creamy coloured root which often translates as 'pepper root' in other languages. This is not a misnomer as it bears a swingeing heat. Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall describes the flavour thus 'shades of peppermint and waves of mustard.' It looks pretty harmless until you get at it to do things with it. If cutting onions causes you to weep then dealing with horseradish will send you to Hades. "The heat comes from sinigrin, a volatile, pungent compound similar to mustard oil in its intensity and effect". I hope this is not entirely true as mustard oil is now virtually banned in Bengal, where it has traditionally been a staple of the diet, because of other less attractive properties.
A variety of eating apple raised by Mrs. Goose of Horsham Street at St Faith's in Norfolk some time around 1790 from a Nonpareil seedling. This late-season variety is harvested from early October in South-East England and is at its best from November to January.
A variety of tapering chilli which ripens from yellow to red.
"Twice cooked." In the United States biscuit describes a soft, scone-like, floury bun, served hot with lots of butter.
Hot black bean sauce has a medium consistency and is a combination of black beans, chillis, garlic, sesame oil and sugar.
A sausage, often a frankfurter, in a bridge roll approximately the same shape as the sausage, and usually dressed, though this is too grand a word, with mustard and tomato ketchup.
Yellow chilli which is very hot when mature.
