Horse meat gained widespread acceptance in French cuisine during the later years of the Second French Empire. The high cost of living in Paris prevented many working-class citizens from buying meat such as pork or beef, so in 1866, the French government legalized the eating of horse meat, and the first butcher's shop specializing in horse meat opened in eastern Paris, providing quality meat at lower prices. During the Siege of Paris (1870–1871), horse meat, along with the meat from donkeys and mules, was eaten by anyone who could afford it, partly because of a shortage of fresh meat in the blockaded
Whale meat Whale meat Whale meat, broadly speaking, may include all cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises) and all parts of the animal: muscle (meat), organs (offal), and fat (blubber). There is relatively little demand for it, compared to farmed livestock, and commercial whaling, which has faced opposition for decades, continues today in very few countries (mainly Iceland, Japan, Norway), although whale meat used to be eaten across Western Europe and colonial America. However, wherever dolphin drive hunting and aboriginal whaling exist, marine mammals are eaten locally as part of the subsistence economy: in the Faroe Islands; in the circumpolar Arctic (the Inuit in