What is it about?
Traditionally hippophagy has been taboo in most of Europe and North America. While Western Europeans generally refuse to consume horseflesh, Turkic and Mongolian nomads and their present-day settled descendants are fond of the meat. Also in the Mishär Tatar culinary tradition, horsemeat products play an important role. Mishär Tatars migrated from the western Volga region to the eastern Baltic Sea region in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They continued to slaughter horses and eat horseflesh, despite being opposed and stigmatized by the majority in these new surroundings. The article discusses the process of urbanizing Mishär Tatar village traditions of horse slaughtering and horsemeat consumption within the context of a largely anti-horseflesh majority society and economy, identity preservation and commensality.
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Why is it important?
Today, home slaughtering has disappeared, and the horsemeat tradition focuses mainly on one delicacy, sausages prepared for domestic consumption or bought in food stores. Commensality, the act of eating together, is an important characteristic of Tatar communities, and the sausages are a regular part of the menu at Tatar community events. Hippophagy continues to play an important role for the diaspora identity and the preservation of traditional narrative and culture, and so far it has resisted all adaptation attempts in the majority societies, where horsemeat is frowned upon.
Perspectives
Descriptions about horse slaughter and horsemeat consumption among Mishär Tatars in village conditions are very rare and mentioned only briefly in travelers’ and ethnologists’ reports, and few scientific studies deal with the tradition of horsemeat consumption. Among the Kazan Tatars further east along the Volga River, consumption of horsemeat is not as common as among the Mishär. This article is an important contribution to the understanding of historical changes in the diet, culture and lifestyle of an understudied and seriously endangered ethnic and religious group living in a diaspora situation.
Dr. Sabira Ståhlberg
Independent Scholar
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Horsemeat in the culinary traditions of the Mishär Tatar diaspora in the eastern Baltic Sea region: cultural and historical aspects, Journal of Ethnic Foods, November 2020, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1186/s42779-020-00072-2.
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