Australia’s first butcher to sell horse meat said he had received death threats and over 2,000 abusive emails, but that customers were delighted they could now buy horse steaks.
Perth butcher Vince Garreffa became the nation’s first legal retailer of horse meat last week after years of campaigning to get a long-standing ban lifted.
“(There) were only two that brought fear to me,” he told AFP between serving customers, saying “the threats could be the work of a couple of over-passionate animal liberationists or pet lovers”.
One threat had been so alarming he said he had referred it to the authorities. Police said they were not able to comment.
Garreffa said his butcher shop sells “probably every meat you can imagine that is legal,” and put much of the opposition down to ignorance.
“The moment I remind (opponents) that Australia has been selling 50,000 to 70,000 horses a year to the rest of the world for human consumption, 95 percent of them fall over backwards and die of shock and are so embarrassed that they didn’t know their facts.”
Government data says that between 30,000 and 40,000 horses are slaughtered every year for export in Australia.
Garreffa vowed to push on with the practice, which he said was simply responding to community demand.
“The European clients I have got that have been in Australia for anything from 50, 40, 30, 20 years, they are so desperate for a taste of home,” he said.
The consumption of horse meat is popular in parts of Asia and Europe, including France, Belgium, and some Central Asian countries.(AFP)
澳洲第一位販賣馬肉的肉商表示,除了遭受死亡威脅,他還接到兩千多封辱罵的電子郵件,不過消費者很高興終於可以買到「馬排」了。
多年來積極鼓吹解除馬肉禁令的伯斯肉商文斯•葛瑞法,上週成為澳洲第一位合法販賣馬肉的零售商。
他一面服務客人一面向法新社表示:「其中只有兩則讓我感到害怕。威脅我的可能是幾個過分狂熱的動物解放主義份子或寵物愛好者。」
他表示,一則威脅著實令人恐慌,他已報請有關當局處理。對此,警方表示無可奉告。
葛瑞法說,他肉舖裡賣的「每一塊肉都是合法的」,而會有那麼多反彈是因為無知。
「容我提醒(反對人士),澳洲每年外銷到世界各地供作食材的馬匹有五到七萬頭,百分之九十五的人對此感到震驚,也為自己不瞭解事實情況覺得尷尬。」
政府資料顯示,澳洲每年都屠宰三、四萬匹馬供應出口。
葛瑞法說,他誓言推動馬肉開放只是為了回應社區需求。
他說:「我的歐洲客人來此生活了二十到五十年不等,他們非常想念家鄉口味。」
食用馬肉的習慣在包括法國、比利時和中亞某些國家在內的歐亞部分地區十分盛行。(法新社╱翻譯:林倩如)
The strongest earthquake to hit Taiwan in 25 years killed at least 16 people and damaged dozens of buildings, but the destruction was largely contained thanks to decades of preparedness work. Taiwan sits on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of intense seismic activity along the Pacific Rim, and — much like neighboring Japan — has a long history of catastrophic quakes. How does April 3 compare with other recent quakes? The April 3 earthquake, which measured 7.4 on the moment magnitude scale, was felt across Taiwan. It was the most severe since a 7.6 magnitude quake in 1999 killed
A: Artificial intelligence technology has been causing controversy lately: a student was caught cheating with AI to win the grand prize in an art contest. B: That’s so absurd. Does this mean that AI paints better than humans? A: Maybe. Luckily, the student was later disqualified. B: And more absurdly, it’s becoming more and more popular to use AI technology to “resurrect” people. A: Yeah, some netizens even posted videos featuring the late singer CoCo Lee, who was “resurrected” by them with AI software. A: 人工智慧的爭議不斷,有學生違規使用AI參加美術展,甚至贏得首獎。 B: 真誇張,這是不是代表AI比人類還強大? A: 或許吧,幸好得獎資格被取消。 B: 還有更誇張的︰讓死者重現的「AI復活」技術越來越熱門。 A: 對啊,還有網友製作已故歌后李玟「復活」的影片呢! (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張聖恩)
Around the time of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, the streets of Taiwan are filled with the delightful aroma of zongzi, a traditional snack made of sticky rice wrapped in leaves. The leaves are folded into a cone and then filled with sticky rice and other ingredients such as braised pork belly, peanuts and salted duck egg yolks. The filled leaves are then tightly tied with kitchen twine and ready for cooking. 每到六月端午時節,街頭巷尾就會飄出粽子的香氣。粽子是將糯米包進粽葉的傳統美食,先將粽葉折成圓錐狀塞入糯米,以及紅燒肉、花生、鹹鴨蛋黃等配料,用棉線綁緊後即可烹煮。 Dragon Boat Festival (n. phr.) 端午節 aroma
It’s another school day with the same ritual. You wake up to your smartphone’s alarm, scroll through messages during your commute, and listen to your favorite playlist with your wireless earbuds between classes. These devices, integrated smoothly into your daily routine, certainly make life more convenient. However, where do these devices end up after you replace them? In fact, the issue of electronic waste is a growing global concern. According to the United Nations, in 2019 alone, we generated an astonishing 53.6 million tons of e-waste—an average of 7.3kg per person. Projections hint at the figure soaring to 110