The Glories of Horse Meat

The Communists claimed that the farmers' pastures had been very dry. The farmers growled that the Communists' planning had been all wet. Somehow or other, so much of Poland's livestock had been shipped to market last season that the country was fresh out of meat. Such belated measures as rationing meat and importing 20,000 tons of Soviet beef had not ended the meat shortage (TIME, Oct. 12), and last week, as the crisis got worse, Communist Boss Wladyslaw Gomulka and his ministers were trying every desperate trick. They convicted 101 official state slaughterers of black-marketing in the Warsaw area, arrested 88 "meat speculators" at Lodz. More ominously, they decreed that the country's still largely independent farmers (only 12% are collectivized) could no longer sell meat in public markets until the farmers first completed their compulsory deliveries (about 60-70% or more of their output) to the state.

Overnight, Poland's Communist dialectic became dietetic. "Many doctors recommend eating horseflesh," said Radio Warsaw, "since it has great curative powers. It helps relieve pains of older people. The meat, though sweet, tastes not unlike beef." Other broadcasts warned of the dangers of cholesterol in beef. Warsaw's Trybuna Ludu sang the praises of the Tartar, an all-horse-meat restaurant that was opened with much fanfare in Rzeszow. "People are going in droves to the Tartar," claimed Trybuna Ludu. "Its varied menu shows what can be done with horse meat ..."

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