I don't think my niece, who is a huge fan of the television show "My Little Pony", is really going to like this news.
There is a restaurant all the way over in Breda, which is a city in the Netherlands, called the Unwanted Animal Kitchen, and just by the name, I think you know where I am going with this.
At the restaurant, you have the chance to order a small variety of different meaty dishes, such as something called Bitterbal, which are homemade croquettes made from wild goose meat, crayfish or even doves (yes, the birds).
Oh, yeah. And you can also order the "My Little Pony Burger," which is a burger that is actually made out of aging ponies from the amusement park Slagharen.
Cue my niece's distressed tears!
Apparently, the Kitchen is run by two artists, Rob Hagenouw and Nicolle Schatborn, who are committed to providing food that makes use of animals typically considered more as pests or pets and less as edible fuel (like, say, cows).
As Hagenouw told NPR back in 2015: "I think there is a kind of block in your head because it's a pet or (an animal that's not typically eaten) … Here we have pet, pest and eating animals -- and we don't mix them."
However, the artistic duo aims to convince diners that animals should not be treated as disposable products; rather, when certain animals are no longer deemed useful by their owners and are then destined to be slaughtered, they argue that rather than dispose of their bodies, we should eat them.
"They don’t sell well because people do feel bad about the idea of eating horse," one of the kitchen workers, Babbe Hengeveld, told a Munchies staff member who tried the pony burger. "I just need to throw away the meat sometimes. For people to understand, you really have to explain to them clearly about the unwanted ponies and horse meat. When I’m cooking in the kitchen, I don’t always have time for this."
At the very least, even if the idea of the pony burger turns your stomach, you can rest assured that all of the food prepared at the Unwanted Animal Kitchen is prepared by providers under European food safety regulations, according to NPR.
Would you ever try this kind of meal?