Gordon Ramsay is urging Brits to try horse meat, but would
you eat it?

This week, the controversial chef is urging the great British public to sample a fabulous new meat. A meat which is, apparently, not only delicious and nutritious, but also ever so slightly gamey, lovely and sweet, gorgeously tender and, best of all, very low in fat.

Already, it sounds too good to be true. Come tomorrow, doubtless there'll be great long queues snaking from every butcher and meat counter in the country as we dash out at dawn to buy this latest superfood.

Er, perhaps not. Did I forget to mention? We're talking about horse.

And so, instead of a buying bonanza, Ramsay's comments have provoked outrage among horse lovers, animal welfare campaigners and even our staunchest meat-eaters.

He might as well have suggested we tuck into the family golden retriever, for goodness sake - and I should know what I'm talking about.

I ate horse last year, in Kazakhstan. And while it was perhaps not at its gourmet best (served in huge boiled chunks in a lukewarm greasy stew with a sheep's head perched on top) the thought of what I was eating - and I'm not talking about the sheep's head - was a thousand times worse than the nasty taste.

But why is that? After all, we happily eat cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks and even deer on a regular basis. Over recent years, we've embraced all manner of faddy meats - ostrich, emu, even kangaroo and crocodile. But a nice juicy horse steak? Never.

There's always that risk that we could be eating a distant descendant of Red Rum, Black Beauty, the late great Desert Orchid or the long-lost cousin of a beloved childhood pony.

The same goes for horses as dogs in this country. As long as they have names and personalities, they're not going to make it onto our dinner plates this side of the Channel, thank you very much.

You only have to remember the scandal four years ago, when horse meat was found in salami imported from Belgium and Italy.

That instinctive shudder is shared by Ramsay's one-time protege Marcus Waering, the chef patron at Petrus in London.

"I would never eat horse meat and I certainly wouldn't serve it in any of my restaurants," he says. "It's not part of our food culture. It's absolutely unthinkable."

Is this not just the teeniest bit irrational?

After all, in France and Belgium - two of our closest neighbours - you can walk into pretty much any supermarket and find whole sections dedicated to horse meat, right there beside the beef and chicken. It comes in steaks, mince, burgers, family bags, barbecue packs, you name it.

The whole of Europe, it seems, is mad for it.

Austrians eat it in hot dogs, dumplings, or in a warming stew with a peanut sauce. Belgians like it smoked (for breakfast) or raw (in steak tartare). The Swiss are partial to steaks, the Germans have it in a sweet and sour sauce and, in Iceland, horse fondue is quite the thing.

While France is traditionally most associated with horse meat, the Italians devour the most - accounting for more than 80 per cent of the Eastern European horse export market - and favour it stewed, shredded in a rocket salad with a twist of lemon, or made into sausages.

But we British still baulk at it.

Perhaps now is time to reconsider, because Ramsay knows his stuff.

Horse meat is high in protein (twice as much as beef), low in fat (it has 40 per cent fewer calories than the leanest beef) and is rich in both iron and Omega 3.

It is also fabulously versatile and can substitute beef, pork, mutton or lamb in virtually any recipe.

In the new series of his food show The F-word, which starts tomorrow on Channel 4, Ramsay dispatches presenter and writer Janet Street-Porter to visit a horse farm in France, then gallop straight to Cheltenham racecourse, to barbecue up some horse meat to tempt the punters.

She was much taken by the new superfood. "Horse meat is a really good source of protein and one we should take seriously," she trills.

"In a world of mad cows, we should be opening our eyes to new types of red meat."

Certainly, horse meat is free from BSE - horse breeding has never been industrialised in Britain and horses are fussy, only feeding on grass and cereal.

But, before we start feeling all hot and bothered and generally appalled at the thought of a nice horse lasagne, it is not illegal to eat horse meat in Britain.

Both horse and donkey meat were eaten in some regions - especially Yorkshire - well into the late 1940s.

During food rationing, horse meat shops sprung up all over the country, complete with alarming notices - "Horse Meat - fit for human consumption".

Newspapers were awash with recipes and cooking tips.

"It went well in casseroles, meat and potato pies and was good for a roast, and not at all fatty," says Barbara Hickman, 83, a retired cook from Aylesbury, Bucks. "I was still buying it from my butcher as late as 1947.

"It would have been tough in a sandwich but I'd have it in a casserole again in a flash - it was lovely and lean - you just don't seem to see it any more."

Today, those who are not repelled by the idea of horse as a food, worry about the possible cruelty to any doomed animal or whether the horse has been contaminated by drugs it has been given during its lifetime.

But the trade in horse meat for human consumption is as strictly regulated as any other in the livestock business.

Horses don't get special treatment. They are killed by the same method used on cattle in many European countries. At the slaughterhouse, they are caged, killed with a bolt gun and the carcass is then portioned for cold storage.

So, if you can still stomach it, what should you look for when choosing your cut? Meat from the younger horses tends to be lighter in colour, while older horses produce richer, darker meat.

Best are "warm-blooded" or "hot-blooded" varieties - horses bred for lightness and speed such as Arab and English Thoroughbreds.

The trouble is, we Brits just don't fancy it, as enterprising butcher Bob Walker discovered when, in 1996 and to great fanfare, he set up shop in the market place at Smethwick, West Midlands, as Britain's only specialist horse meat butcher.

He lasted barely a year. "There just wasn't the demand," he said.

Does that mean we're missing out? Probably not. If you've ever eaten steak frites in France for under a tenner, you have most likely tasted it anyway.

My own equine experience left me violently ill within hours - although that could have been something to do with the vodka and sheep's skull.

Perhaps, with a piquant sauce and some fondant potatoes, it'd have been more palatable. But I'm not going to be tempted.

Horse may have everything going for it in terms of taste, nutrition and versatility. But as long as the very thought conjures up an image of Black Beauty, galloping through the grass, it's going to stay firmly in the field.