Plan B Forum

He is the diner that restaurants hope never comes back, but all too often he does.

Christopher Travis, 53, was jailed for two years yesterday after having been convicted of failing to pay for a meal, the latest in a long line of similar offences.

Travis was also in breach of an ASBO banning him from every restaurant and pub in England and Wales when he went to Lorenzo’s, a Spanish restaurant in Plymouth, and ordered tapas and a glass of wine.

When the time came to pay the £20.45 bill, Travis patted his pockets but could produce only a 20p piece. He told staff he had recently been released from prison and wanted to go back.

Yesterday he got his wish when the judge at Plymouth Crown Court jailed him for 24 months after his 88th court appearance, more than half of them for eating meals in fine restaurants then refusing to pay. The court was told that Travis has cheated restaurants across the country, from Cornwall to Derby, and been found guilty of breaching his ASBO 15 times.

Judge Paul Darlow told him: “You made an order and patted your pockets. You knew you weren’t going to pay for that. That was an act of fraud ... You have been before this court time and time again for exactly the same sort of behaviour.”

In June last year Travis was jailed for 16 months for failing to pay for a £51.52 meal at the Michelin-starred Adobe restaurant in Exeter, owned by the chef Michael Caines. The court was told that he was rude when the restaurant’s card machine refused to accept payment because his account was overdrawn.

He calmed down when the police arrived and he told them: “I just wanted a good meal before I went back to jail.” At that trial his defence admitted that Travis “doesn’t choose bottom-end of the scale” when it comes to dining out.

The ASBO was imposed in 2010 when he ran away from a restaurant in Derby without paying for his meal. Just a few weeks later he was back in court after doing the same thing in Lincoln. Lincoln Magistrates’ Court was told that Travis had gone into the Pomodoro E Basilico Italian restaurant and ordered food and the most expensive bottle of wine on their menu.

Yesterday he was looking forward to at least a year of porridge.

Despite the many historic alliances and cultural ties between Britain and France, the two countries now seem to be quite divided on one subject: eating horsemeat.

Britons have been unable to contain their outrage upon learning that certain frozen foods sold at local supermarkets were found to contain horsemeat. But across the Channel, French eaters remain loyal to certain delicacies like breaded horse brain, pan-fried horse heart, and horse steak, Reuters reports.

Horsemeat aficionados line up at horse butchers in Parisian backstreets to get their favorite meat, prepared with oil, lemon juice and pepper, according to Reuters. The fallout of the scandal has done little to rock their perception of a meat they call “a tastier and healthier alternative to beef.” The only thing they lament is the lack of availability — horse butchers are simply rare to come by these days.

Gerard Marin, a 67-year-old horsemeat fan who visits Paris’s horse butchers once a week, told Reuters that he understood why the Britons were upset when their beef turned out to be “old Romanian ponies” but he said people “don’t know what they are missing.”

Horsemeat lovers tout its health benefits: the protein is low in calories but rich in iron and cholesterol-lowering omega-3 fatty acids. Their passion for the meat can be traced back to the Second French Empire, when horsemeat, originally a frugal living choice, made its way into high-end French restaurants. But it was actually illegal to consume until 1866, when the French government overturned the ban, citing the prohibitively high cost of pork and beef. According to The Telegraph, new horsemeat shops have been opening “everyday” in Paris since 2007 as people embraced horsemeat dishes and a group of young horsemeat eaters even formed a dining club called “Le Pony Club.”

France is not the only country that has a taste for the meat. Horsemeat is enjoyed across the world in Japan, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and China. Japanese people call the meat sakura, which means “cherry blossom,” because of its dark red color. In southern parts of China, a famous local dish is “Ma Rou Mi Fen,” horsemeat rice noodles. In Belgium, the meat, prized for its rich flavor, is a “dietary staple,” notes the New York Times.

According to National Geographic, horsemeat has a “lingering sweetness, which is not disagreeable.” But in certain parts of the world, like the United States and United Kingdom, eating the meat of the gentle giants just seems wrong. So then, why is one country’s favorite food another country’s taboo?

Boris Johnson, current mayor of London, seems to have an answer. In an op-ed published in the Telegraph, Johnson asserts that everything comes down to the power of the taboos. “Individually and collectively, people developed little electric fences in the mind, and by agreeing on what was taboo they defined themselves; they defined themselves in opposition to others; and they helped to create a crucial sense of identity.”