M Wells Dinette scandal and dangers of horse meat

PHOTO CREDIT: DON RYAN / AP
Horse meat originating from Canada is testing positive for carcinogenic drug residues. Canada is where Hugue Dufour of M. Wells says he gets his horse meat, the horse meat he sold to unwitting consumers at a food festival in New York and intended to serve at his diner based at MoMA PS1.

JAMES McWILLIAMS filed a report for Slate.com entitled “Trojan Horse Meat” which reads in part:

At Brooklyn’s Great GoogaMooga food festival last May, Hugue Dufour, the noted chef who’d co-founded the acclaimed M. Wells Diner, sold 5,000 grilled-cheese sandwiches that created quite a buzz among New York foodies. That’s because Dufour’s creation was stuffed with foie gras, pork fat, and—the rogue ingredient that titillated adventurous eaters—horse meat (mixed with pork to make bologna).

Last month, Dufour sought to capitalize on his food-festival fame by announcing that the reincarnation of his restaurant—M. Wells Dinette, now open in Queens at MoMA PS1—would serve horse tartare: raw horse meat. This time the reaction wasn’t so enthusiastic. Public opposition was widespread . . . Chastened, Dufour, who ate horse meat while training to be a chef in Canada, removed the item from the menu, judiciously noting in a statement from the restaurant that “scandalizing animal lovers is not what we want to be famous for.”

The real threat to any retailer that serves horse meat isn’t the drumbeat of opposition that will inevitably resound from horse lovers. It’s the hazard that horse meat poses to public health.

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