WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - Once an ersatz beef of the poor, horse meat has morphed into a high-end fare of discerning European carnivores.

And some of the world's tastiest comes from the United States, where mustangs roam the range buffing up on nothing but grass, according to European horse butchers.

"Horse meat is very good for your health," said Max Marki, proprietor of Boucherie Chevaline on the Boulevard du Pont d'Arve in Geneva, Switzerland.

"It's lean, high in protein and low in cholesterol," said Alfred Bredel, proprietor of the 110-year-old Ross-Schlachterei Bredel, Berlin's only horse butchery. "It's healthier than beef and costs about the same. It's no longer the meat of the poor."

Because it takes years for a horse to reach prime slaughter age, a hardship on a continent that lacks vast grasslands, European horse butchers seek stock from overseas, primarily Argentina, Australia, Canada and, increasingly, the United States.

A sign in Marki's shop reads "horse meat origin USA." Next to a logo of a prancing steed are the words "Dallas Crown, Inc. Texas, USA."

The heart of Europe's horse consumption stretches from Francophone, Belgium, to western Switzerland via France, with pockets in Italy, Spain, Austria and Germany. Horse is eaten, as well, in the Canadian province of Quebec, where the taste harkens back to France, Europe's biggest consumer of horse meat and the ancestral land of most Quebecois.

Horse meat is special in another way.

"The older the horse, the more tender it is; it's the opposite of other meats," said Jean-Claude Terraillon, proprietor of J.Cl. Terraillon, a Geneva horse meat wholesaler and retailer.

Marki pays his Geneva wholesaler the equivalent of about $6.15 a pound for American horse meat. He sells more than 220 pounds per week retail for $10.80 to $11.60 a pound.

Many of the horses slaughtered in Canada were American, including former race horses, according to "Le monde equestre," a Quebec horse lovers' Web site. Some meat ends up as dog food, zoo food or feed for animals raised for fur, according to the site.

Another Quebec Web site, "Hourra Pour le Cheval," warns that horse meat can be laden with antibiotics, fungicides and externally applied parasite remedies that are readily absorbed by the animal's internal organs.

European horse butchers have no such worries about United States imports.

"They're wild horses," said Marki, "The taste (of their meat) is very, very good - extra(ordinary)."