The London Lounge

No playing in the Paris metro thanks to B. Bardot is an ad against the eating of horsemeat (believe it or not.)



The caption reads” How do you like your horse? Living in the wild? Or as a steak?”

Mlle Bardot forgot to add our answer…”We prefer them as shoes!”

If more Frenchman eat horse then more horses will be bred for food. If the French are savvy, they could then supply cordovan leather to the European market and prices would come down. Perhaps we could persuade McDonalds in Paris to offer horse burgers.

Surely the horse leather used for our cordovan shoes is taken from horses that have died of other reasons ..They do not breed horses for cordovan do they ?

Vassilis

No, cordovan isn't that expensive!

How much does cordovan cost? (per cm I am guessing?)
James

Horses may be best as cordovan, but I for one find horse meat delicious and would consider it highly regrettable if BB's campaign were to succeed in driving the last boucheries chevalines out of business. Life would be dull without traditionally made elegant dress; but the loss of tradition and know-how in other spheres of life, such as food, is equally depressing.

Milo

Its funny you should mention the other métiers a risque. I was interviewed about a month ago by an Italian journalist and I confided that the inspiration for the creation of the LL was the Slow Food movement based in Bra, Italy www.slowfood.com

I imagine that many of our readers and members are likewise members of slowfood and are interested in protecting artisan made food products from the encroachment of Micky D, Brussels, the industrial foodstuffs makers, and dear old Bebe.

If there are budding or passionate gourmets amongst our readers, they should contact slowfood and see about joining a local chapter, called a convivia (http://www.slowfoodusa.org/contact/index.html) immediately.

Cheers

M Alden

Are you aware that a group of Italian companies has, in a similar vein, titled themselves Slowear, as a reference to the pace at which their (allegedly) largely handmade garments are constructed?

The trouser-maker Incotex is the cornerstone, and the knitwear firm Zanone is the other one that springs immediately to mind, there are about five in total I believe...