Meat, Food, and Farming

2015-03-12T13:47:00.002+00:00

The importance of rare breed pigs in making bacon

Mangalitsa, School of Artisan Food
used on Artisan Butchery Fundamentals

The basic principles of curing is an application of salt and possibly nitrate or nitrite and some form of sugar to preserve.

Curing as a preservation method has been practised for as long as man has been hunting animals and catching fish, right up to modern times.

The methodologies really haven't changed that much, from vast savannah grasslands to the mountains ranges and sea shores, preservation of meat and fish was done using curing and sometimes followed by drying. Occasionally in the damper areas there was excessive application and sometimes really excessive application of salt which gave rise to the tradition of things like salt pork and salt cod.

Historically pork would have been cured when there was an excess of meat and traditionally only when there was an 'R' in the month. There is a self evident truth that even in this time of plenty the product which is, wonderful bacon made from rare breed pigs shouldn't be wasted.

The good thing about rare breed pork made into bacon is that it will keep a lot longer than if it had been made from a modern fast growing pig. Even if it is kept in a fridge and not frozen.

Dry cured Rare Breed bacon

Curing sounds very simple, and to some extent it is, but the nuances are massive between a high quality product and something that you would buy in the supermarket, which has a flavour profile of non descript protein with salt, sugar and sodium nitrate and sometimes sodium nitrite (saltpetre).

Sodium ascorbate or erythorbate can be added to very commercial production to accelerate the curing process.

The key to any food product is obviously the raw materials you start with, in this case the pig, a slow growing rare breed, a bit older, more like twelve months than six, will deliver the goods. If you need help sourcing rare breed pork, the Rare Breed Survival Trust can help https://www.rbst.org.uk and can give you information on rare breed suppliers.

british lop @ curing course London
multi purpose good for pork and curing

No matter how much attention you pay to the curing process the end product's quality will absolutely be defined by how good the raw material is and secondly the ingredients, obviously the cure should be as simple possible.

This blog post is not meant to be a how to of curing, as there are loads of informative articles out there to read that will give you science technical methodologies on how to. Even after reading those articles there is the experience of how much fat, what breed fed in which way, and just how salty you want the flavour profile of your bacon to be? The permutations of how your bacon will turn out will be temperature, time, humidity, and much more so practice makes perfect.

I can't emphasise enough that flavour is derived from the best raw materials, processed in the least intrusive way!

Tamworth the ultimate curing and lard producing pig

So as with everything simplicity is the way to achieve the best results. There are things that get good results but there are products that are designed for the job, like the Tamworth pig designed for curing and producing lard!

Simple curing can be performed at home very easily. There are websites that you can buy ready-made cures from. Here are a couple but there are loads more: www.sausagemaking.org

http://www.weschenfelder.co.uk

There also are pink salts and whole range of different cures or you can simply use salt and sugar.

The necessity for fantastic raw materials to produce an amazing product also goes for the tools you use. A great knife is the saturating point for great butchery. These are the best Sheffield has to offer

Britains best knives made in Sheffield

Tools

2015-01-14T10:57:00.001+00:00

Upper most in the importance of craft skills are tools. All of the world's butchery is carried out by the skill and passion of a butcher, and his knowledge of how to use a knife, saw and cleaver to disseminate an animal into its component parts.

I want to impart my passion for tools and the right tool for the job, the differences and importance of the right tools!

standard commercial cleaver

Above is a picture of a cleaver, commonly in use in most meat preparation premises from the artisan butcher to a massive processing plant.

The cleaver is functional, unfortunately with a plastic handle, which coincidentally isn't as we are lead to believe more hygienic than wooden handles!

The nature of this yellow handled tool is that it feels very thick when you use it; and to be honest a bit of a lump hammer.

This belies the difference in cleavers in times gone by when the art of using a cleaver has been overtaken by such modern machines as band saws.

Band saws are ok if your skill with a cleaver is not that great. Unfortunately the band saw is likely to heat up the surface of the muscle and speed up darkening of the cut surface. This darkening is not a difficulty to the eating quality but definitely is a difficulty to how it looks at the point of sale. My Mother would say people eat with their eyes first and they also obviously buy with their eyes.

The bandsaw also throws lots of bone dust all over the produce. I know that the cleaver breaks bone, but very cleanly and much more so than a band saw in the hands of a skilled craftsman.

A skilled craftsman with a cleaver can achieve near perfect results and minimise bone dust and bone shards to almost zero.

Practice makes perfect, well maybe not perfect but better and better.

Cleavers or choppers are a vital part of the tools required for butchery. Below is a picture of 2 plates from Douglas's Encyclopaedia; first plate is from 1905 edition the second from the 1924 edition. Both prized possessions of mine.

As you can see from this 1905 picture above and the 1924 picture below what might be described as a plethora but in fact had been honed over centuries as the right tool for the job.

The cleaver I remember using in the late seventies (shown on Fig VII), with which I became very proficient, had a wooden handle and a steel blade which went into the handle, as they say, full tang.

This cleaver was quite light, compared to the modern yellow handled example above.

The reason it was lighter is, as my good friend Mr Simon Grant-Jones a black smith, not a farrier (another story for another day www.simongrant-jones.com) said that a tool steel edge is forge welded to the more mild steel main body of the cleaver. Hence allowing for a very robust edge without the requirement for a big heavy blade.

Having looked at the plates from both books it became apparent to me that the figure 405 was the closest to the cleaver I used in my early career.

As you can see above figure 420 looks really large. Well this is the cleaver I remember being used in the abattoir in Gt Urswick by the one man team Mr Raymond Hurst known to all as strangely as Hursty.

Hursty could wield the double handed cleaver to split bodies of beef.

Unfortunately if you asked him as a farmer to cut your lamb up for the freezer that was the only tool he used. Which just goes to show the right tool for the right job or not as the case may be.

Soon to be available on www.farmersharp.co.uk a proper cleaver.

2014-11-04T14:35:00.003+00:00

Christmas is coming

hopefully the poultry is nearly fat

It is obviously getting to that time of year when soon the turkey order will have to go in, pay the deposit at your local butcher or farmers market or possibly leaving it to pot luck at the last minute. Good luck with that.

Cooked to perfection for the perfect Christmas Dinner

and how to achieve the best results

Get the Turkey out at least two or three hours before you are going to start cooking it. If your kitchen is not too hot, get the turkey out last thing at night on Christmas eve. If you do get your turkey straight out of the fridge, your cooking time will be increased, as it is too cold when you start.
NEVER stuff with bred crumbs or anything that is going to absorb moisture. This will make your turkey dryer. Cook your stuffing in the oven in a separate dish.
First put a couple of quartered medium onions, a generous bouquet of herbs like sage, thyme even rosemary, and for me a full bulb of garlic. Prepare for the oven with plenty of salt and pepper. Moisten the skin and rub some salt in the skin of the breast as well.
The cooking time should be 15 min per pound at most. Start your turkey for half an hour of the cooking time at nearly maximum heat, breast up. Then for the remainder of the time roast the bird breast down. This will allow some of the juices coming out of the bird during roasting to keep the breast moist. For the last half an hour turn the bird breast up to brown the skin and make it lovely and crispy ready for serving.
The way to check is to get a thin knife, or better a skewer, pushed into the thick part of the leg, and as soon as there is no blood in the juice coming out and it runs clear it is done. As it often happens, if your turkey is cooked before you are ready to serve, take it out of the oven and cover in foil until you are ready to carve it.

There is always a conundrum about what to buy, which will be value for money, which will taste the best. The general guidelines are the old fashioned breeds like Norfolk Black or Bronze will have a much better Flavour profile and will be less dry when roasted properly. The down side is that the cost of a small bronze will probably be app £12-15 per kg.

However if you go for a cheap white variety, frozen or even fresh, they will be tasteless and dry. But the alternative Bronze or Norfolk Black will be a revelation when you eat them with your guests on Christmas day.
It is however not that simple because if you have a fast growing commercial white turkey, those marvellous genetic boys can alter them to be the same white bird but with bronze or black feathers! So be aware. But how to sort this out? Well, buy from your butcher or farmers market. Ask him where he gets his birds from and what breed are they and get as much detail as possible!
Lastly but by no means least, hanging and maturing. As we have all got used to our beef being aged and appreciate the difference this makes, wether it is 21 days or 35 days, this is also important for your turkey.
I would say app ten days NYD (which is plucked and not eviscerated) will add masses of flavour and tenderise the bird. Ask the butcher or farmers market trader if they do this, and it is absolutely worth paying a pound or two more for.

The Norfolk Black has become the quality standard for Christmas Turkeys and it seems the only one that people have heard of, one of the other breeds is Bronze which is championed by the Kelly company. There is a plethora of other breeds which are grown in the UK but not in large quantities like Bourbon Red, Narragansett, Buff. In general these, lets say less common breeds, tend to not have as much flesh and more akin to their wild ancestors.

The now eponymous Kelly Bronze which is one of the most common non white breeds grown commercially in the UK

The Norfolk Black more commonly grown than the breeds pictured below and a great option.
It should by the nature of its name be black all over and have no other colours in its feathers.

The Narragansett is a turkey from Rhode Island and is to some extent what people have in mind when they picture a turkey in the farm yard.

The Buff is named after the rich reddish-buff colouring of its body feathers, and the Buff is a paler cinnamon shade than the Bourbon Red with white on the wing and tail feathers. Today there are very few of them in the UK.

The Bourbon has dark, red plumage and white in the flight and tail feathers; the main tail feathers have a soft red bar at the tip.

Cooked to perfection for the perfect christmas dinner

bit of a video, how Mr Kelly does it

Autumnal sheep (mutton)

2014-10-06T12:11:00.003+01:00

Autumnal sheep (mutton)

Autumn is seen as the start of mutton season. As far as Farmer Sharp is concerned (ME) it is always mutton time. It is just, that at this time of year, there are the beginnings of dark nights and cold days; and the lust after hearty robust slow roasts and stews; and nothing will do that better than the world renowned Herdwick Mutton, now with a PDO.

Above is the logo given to products that have achieved Protected Designation of Origin. This is the same protection given to champagne.

I guess though that a fantastic robust roast of Herdwick mutton from the sunny Lake District (where it obviously never rains) would go better with a bottle of Jennings finest www.jenningsbrewery.co.uk

or maybe a laughing gravy from www.ulverstonbrewingcompany.co.uk. And if that doesn't float your boat, a big huge red wine, to be honest they all do it for me. Herdwick mutton deserves only the best accompaniment.

Herdwick mutton chump/rump

Chump is a fantastic cut. It will weigh app 300g boneless, and is a perfect portion for two to three people. Just brown and caramelize in a heavy frying pan, then open roast in a medium oven for less than half an hour. It will deliver!

Herdwick mutton leg

This mutton leg will weigh app 1.8kg and will serve six to eight people with left overs for sandwiches the following day. Or 'maybe' not? Brown and caramelise in a heavy frying pan, then open roast in a medium to hot oven for just under two hours will deliver perfectly cooked pink mutton. Most people will tell ewe that mutton needs to be cooked long and slow and possibly boiled. This is not the case with top quality mutton like Herdwick, which will surprise ewe, I guarantee.

Herdwick mutton chops

These chops will weigh app 100g each, two chops per person. With these mutton chops ewe will see that there is a level of internal fat content. Unlike most other mutton, ewe will find the fat has a pleasant eating quality. In research Herdwick has been shown to have raised levels of omega 3 healthy fatty acids. So not claggy and healthier too; how good is that.

Herdwick mutton noisette

This joint will weigh app300g and will serve two to four people. This favourite of the seventies and eighties has been over shadowed by the much hyped french trimmed rack. But the noisette will be much better value and will deliver every time. Brown and caramelise in a heavy frying pan, and finish of in the oven for a maximum of ten mins, just to warm through, then slice and serve 'RARE'. Amazing.

Boneless shoulder of Herdwick mutton

This shoulder will weigh approximately 1.8kg and will serve at least eight people, maybe?

The beauty of this cut is in long slow cooking. I like it pierced with garlic, anchovies and fresh rosemary and after browning vigorously, roast for two and a half hours in a low temp oven. It makes an amazing roast, like only Herdwick mutton can.

I here a cry: where can I get this amazing product from?
Well strange ewe should ask that the answer obviously is
www.farmersharp.co.uk

Should we eat meat

2014-08-27T13:06:00.000+01:00

Should We Eat Meat?

The answer is Yes of course and here is why

As the debate, inevitably, ranges over the should we shouldn't we eat meat, the argument has merit on both sides, dependent on which side of the fence you are.

For me this debate has a simple but not simplistic answer:

"eat less and eat better".

For this you need to be able to evaluate what is better?
Better for me means free ranging animals, extensively reared and grass fed on traditional pastures, which will also look after the health of the soil. Native or primitive breeds will have less environmental impact in many ways. We definitely need to grasp the thorny issue of food waste, as the figures bandied around are thirty percent of all food produced is wasted in the UK.

'Pigidea'

Pigs and, to some extent poultry, can be fed on our food waste. As nobody, least of all me, wants to risk another foot and mouth outbreak, as it happend back in 2001, this can be easily overcome by the political will to control the cooking and sterilizing of food waste in a centralized manner.
The evidence is, to some extent, irrefutable that consumption in the western economies needs to be massively reduced. Amongst many of the reasons for the increase of consumption is obviously price.
Here is some evidence of the fact that meat is too cheap.

copies from my Grandads butchers buying book, 26 Feb 1962

Here goes the statistical bit and there is the saying that "there are lies, dammed lies and statistics". Working out the price of five pigs at £52-12-3 in old money, this translates to app £10.45 per pig in today's money.

Average earnings in early 1962 were app £832.00 per annum. Average earnings in early 2014 were app £24,856.00 per annum, which is nearly a multiple of 30. So from this our pig should be £310.00 ish. And today the price for one pig is about £170.00.
It is also necessary to understand the different eating qualities, as it is not only about cost. The pig of 1962 would have had more fat and less meat to bone ratio. It would have had far better eating quality though, than today's commercially produced ones. This would be especially true, if it had been given a viaried diet, that might have included food waste (swill). This pig would have come from more traditional breed than today's hybrids.
The 1962 pig would have had a minimal carbon foot print compared to today's intensively reared cereal fed animals.
Why is the pig £140 cheaper?
This has many reasons. Some are relating to intensification, change of diet, bigger litters, breed hybridization and much much more.
Even at a £170.00 there is a lot more expense now, in slaughtering and processing a pig, than there was in 1962. This is due to a massive increases in facility costs, inspection and audit, and the regulatory requirements placed on farmers, abattoirs and cutting plants.

'Meat is too cheap'

So the result, in my opinion, of all the debate is that yes we should eat meat. It is obviously better to have ruminants reared on non arable land, where no cereal can viably be grown.

One of the examples I would use are Herdwick sheep, which have a very low carbon foot print and are raised on land that most definitely wouldn't grow any cereals.

2014-08-08T10:22:00.002+01:00

Terra Madre

Terra Madre is a network of food communities, which are groups of small-scale food producers committed to producing quality food in a responsible, sustainable way. There are more than 2,000 Terra Madre food communities around the world.

The First Terra Madre was in 2004 in a massive former production hall in the Fiat factory in Turin. For a Cumbrian meet food and farming insider and a straight forward country guy this was a massive thing. I didn't realise just how massive until I attended. In any other circles this would have been a confrence.

And oh, what a confrence! I had an opportunity to see and speak to some of the attendees as different and diverse as Eritrean goat farmers to Andean lama farmers to Polish mountain sheep farmers, all in their traditional costumes.

What struck me, amongst thousands of other things, was that these people (possibly for the first time) could feel that they were important producers; a collective of like minded people they had some thing in common with massively different but important strands of similarity.

All the way from the Andies

Attending the first ever Terra Madre was memorable for many things but mostly as there was a biggish British Pavillion of producers including me with air dried Herdwick mutton and Herdwick Mutton Salami, Peter Gott with his wild boar farmed in Cumbria, Denhay farm, scotch blackface to name but a few. On a personal level my wife gave birth to our first child ZOSIA, whilst I was away.

Zosia

So moving forward to the next Terra Madre, in 2006. It was the turn of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. By this time I was deeply involved with Mutton. When I look at that written down, it looks a little odd (not in the New Zealand/Welsh way). When was I ever not involved with the mutton? Particulaly Herdwick mutton, it's sale and general promotion. His Royal Highness's opening speach at Terra Madre was, as I have since come to expect from His Royal Highness, an emotional, passionate and intelegent speach about the small familly unit producing food, which we in England know as a familly farm. Oh boy what a day!

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Farmer Sharp and Peter Gott

Whilst an exhibitor at Salone I was attempting to sell English charcuterie to the ultimate market, Italy home of the famous Culatello, Parma Ham and most interesting to me Violino di Capra.

violino di capra

consortium of producers of Parma Ham

My Stand at Salone del Gusto, British Pavillion

And so I am proud to have been appointed a British representative at Terra madre 2014

2014-07-16T19:33:00.002+01:00

Lamb pluck

The Offal

There is more and more talk about the fith quarter which in lay man's terms means Offal. I know I have blogged about this before but but for fear of repeating myself, which my Nana always said was the ony way to get anything through, here is more on Offal.

Lamb Pluck First get your pluck

Untrimmed Lamb Pluck or Offal

When you think about cost, a pluck will cost about £3.00 ish. Ask your butcher, he will be impressed that you even know what it is called. The next stage is to let your kids have a look. They will only be grossed out for a millisecond, then they will want to touch and get involved. Radek did, as you will see on the pic below. What a great way to start anatomy lessons and involve them in eating other foods.

Start the cutting by removing the liver trimming, the white cologen where it was attached to the diaphram. Then remove the white looking pipes etc from the inside. If you cant see them you have it the wrong way up.

Cut of the heart just above the fat.

Seperate the two lung lobes, trim out the pipes by just cutting each lobe into four pices and cut out the pipes as best as you can. It doesn't matter if you don't get them all.

Pluck Trimmed

The trimmed bits of the pluck: liver, heart, lung, heart, sweet bread, diaphram or skirt can all be used separately. Although everything can be minced to make a kind of faggot. When I was a child growing up in lower Furness I knew them as child savory duck, which sounds much better.

The trimmed components of the pluck are also some of the proper constituents of haggis, along with oats, fat and spleen.

Recipe from my 1904 Douglas's Encyclopaedia of meat

ancient-haggis recipe not that different

This haggis recipe could be done with this style of recipe although might need a bit of modernising and some oatmeal and suet fat, preferebly lamb or even better mutton suet fat.

Liver and Sliced ready for cooking

So to the sliced Liver and heart. We all had the heart and liver cooked medium rare, on a flat cast iron griddle, just coated in seasoned flour. And it was fantastic. The heart is like a good lamb steak. The remainder of the pluck is going to make the haggis.

"it just smells like meat Dad"

"Feels a bit wierd though"

And here is the finished article. Complete with nettle garnish and polenta.

Nettle garnish because there is nettle in the recipe. I have put the link in above for the recipe I used here.

My new web site. Take a look let me know what you think?

Three Bird Roast

2013-12-18T08:30:00.000+00:00

The plan for the three bird roast demo last thursday evening at the School of Artisan food was to use a small five kilo bronze free- range turkey, a two kilo free- range chicken and a three kilo free- range duck.

I got the train from King's Cross in the morning thinking all good but in passing on the phone, I had said that maybe I could do a second three bird roast if the game keeper had any birds about. I got to the Welbeck Estate where I checked in and thought I would have look at the birds, but going into the butchery room, I was confronted by some mallard ducks, a red legged Partridge and some pheasants.

All good with that so far except I also had to pluck them so they could get into the oven and as the mallards were in place of the commercial duck there was a lot to do as I probably haven't plucked mallards since I was twenty (and I would like to say that twenty was only a few years ago but it’s more like thirty than five).

With some help from the lovely Lee-Anna, we got them all done in double quick time as they were still warm, and then rushed the two different roasts to the refectory kitchen as they had to be cooked for 8 o'clock. They were then stuffed and made ready for the oven.

The stuffing was made for me by Gill in the refectory kitchen, with my instruction of no bread, cous-cous or anything like that as bread based stuffings absorb moisture and can make the birds dryer. If ewe want to have something like sage and onion stuffing, roast it in a separate tray a little on the side before your three bird roast is done.

Watch out for the video after xmas!

The noble, unmistakable and not-so-humble truffle

2013-12-11T08:44:00.000+00:00

Those people who have had a meal scented with their pungent flavour will understand my excitement in anticipation of the new season. Whether in a risotto or with a duck egg, that unmistakable truffle flavour is indescribably fantastic.

The truffle is indicative of the whole seasonality of food and the pleasures one can derive from a new season product like truffle or asparagus. Growing within the seasons (if maybe extending them a bit with modern methods like polytunnels) is recommended, as frankly this is the more sustainable system.

The truffle is a poster boy for two of the most blatantly political arguments, sustainability and seasonality, and, the not- so- humble truffle will if over used, not be there the next time we look for it - in my opinion, the perfect analogy for sustainability vs extinction.

Radio Sharpie - Passionate about pheasant

2013-12-09T08:30:00.000+00:00

Roadkill recipe

2013-12-06T08:30:00.000+00:00

My friend the egg man sent me a message recently saying that he’d knocked over a hare and did I want it.... erm, yes!

I was pleased to receive this fully grown leveret, really quite a young animal that wasn’t very strong (in flavour) as I’m personally not overkeen on extremely strong hare....

I kept it for a couple of days in the fridge then dressed it (gutted and skinned it), but was undecided on how to cook it.....

I chopped it into joints and thought that maybe curry might be an idea and after looking up an American recipe which had all these multitude of spices in it (half of which I didn't have), thought I would just make it up as I went along...

So,

pan fried the hare, browned it and put it to one side,
fried some onions, some garlic, some ginger and whatever spices we had in cupboard in it’s juices,
braised it for not very long (about 1.5 to 2 hours) and in the end, it turned out to be quite tender.....

Young Farmer Sharp (Michael), along with his non-foodie mate (who thought it was a curried chicken), and even my little girl who doesn’t eat curry or spicy food ate it all up....my little lad Radek also ate lots of it and was very pleased even though he doesn’t really like spicy food either.....

All in all, roadkill can be quite good. To some extent, it is food waste and potentially wasted food, so as long as you are sure where it came from and of the healthiness of the meat (i.e. that it’s not been on the road side for days and contaminated), if you’ve knocked something over by accident then why not turn it into an economically viable and bloody good meal? Me and the entire family actually enjoyed it much more the day after too!

Sustainable farming

2013-12-04T08:30:00.000+00:00

Sustainable farming is the only way for farming, fact.

It all might feel a bit preachy and a bit "what a bad lot we all are" for not eating sustainably, but even the thought of change is a start.

The opposite of sustainable is Un-Sustainable which we definitely can’t afford, so everyone has to take the metaphorical Bull by the horns and see what can be done.

The system can’t be changed overnight but at the heart of this matter are without doubt all the current issues - "pig swill", "meat free Mondays", and ironically from me Mr Meat, "eat less meat"..... All this has been voiced many times over and it does indeed start with education, but the conversation must continue within the day to day reality of food consumption and consequently food production.

I heard an agronomist (soil Scientist) say recently that arable soils are lacking in organic matter, and that the soil needs to be cared for and revered, not whipped like an ill treated dog. Good sustainable farming is in all our interests.

Radio Sharpie - Let them eat cake.....or horse

2013-12-02T08:30:00.000+00:00

Review of The PigIdea

2013-11-29T08:29:00.000+00:00

The day was filled with lunch time workers quizzically asking questions such as “what the hell we were doing in the middle of Trafalgar square giving away food?”. Fair question I reckon, but there was on the whole, a massively positive response to the Big idea that is the PigIdea. The winter sun mostly shone through too, and as a good Cumbrian, have to say it’s good to see the sun now and then, especially the winter sun.

As a Hambassador for The PigIdea and with a name like Farmer Sharp, I was contacted by BPEX’s PR company Wild card, who asked if we could meet at the Trafalgar square pig feast.

Our conversation was a frank and open exchange on all the possible ramifications for the pig industry as a whole but maybe I’m guessing, with a focus on the bigger end of that industry. The conversation covered their worries that this Idea could be a threat in view of the alleged Heddon- on- the- Wall swill derived foot and mouth disaster. As a person who saw my cousin get all their livestock culled this is the last thing I would want to risk happening again.

We all have a duty to look at the fact that approximately 15 million tons of food waste every year (a conservative estimate) is currently being thrown away, and even if we only got a few percent of this food waste into feeding pigs it will be a massive start. Not to rush at it like a bull at a gate but careful thoughtful resolution of the problems is required to make it as risk free as it can be.

There is also the farming conversation of yield and food conversion rates etc. I personally am not an advocate for feeding pigs on swill alone, but for feeding them a balanced diet with a percentage of swill which can mean that a good and not massively fat carcass will be produced. The nutritional knowledge is already there to sort this issue out, and maybe with swill feeding there might also come an improvement of the pig producers margins, as they are generally slim at the moment.

The other great asset to swill feeding is that quite often swill fed pigs reared in the right way can be massively better eating and that is a win win situation - in japan, swill fed pigs achieve quite a premium because of the better eating qualities such as fat marbling and more depth of flavour.

Ice

2013-11-27T09:14:00.000+00:00

I really do love winter. It is to most people an anathema, but to me it brings only healthy brisk mornings through the open window in the bedroom.

A really hard winter kills bugs and insect pests, so from a farming point of view it’s good, but can also be a double edged sword as the livestock and particularly the hill and fell sheep can find it hard going.

As a died- in- the- wool meat man, I have to say that stuff also keeps better......I remember my first employer (the old sexy Rexy) saying “by Gum its cold, but its grand keeping weather”.

The other morning as we sat having breakfast, discussing with the kids about the impending severe cold weather on its way, their only comment was “will there be snow? bring it on!”. And of course, who can doubt the wonderful and warming feeling of those comfort foods we all crave when the temperature plummets.... the stews, the soups, the roasts, all the dishes that in the height of summer feel like too much too much effort to eat and certainly too much effort to cook.

Radio Sharpie - Passionate about Offal Part 2

2013-11-25T08:30:00.000+00:00

Radio Sharpie - Passionate about Offal, Part 1

2013-11-22T08:30:00.000+00:00

Meat, Food, and Farming: Pig Swill RePost

2013-11-21T08:41:00.001+00:00

Meat, Food, and Farming: Pig Swill: One of my youthful memories is of Mr. Mulgrew in his mazda pickup collecting the kitchen waste (or pig swill as it was known) from the lo...

Radek's Tudor meal

2013-11-20T08:33:00.000+00:00

Cooking at the weekend I created a trio of meals using bits I had found in the freezer.

Mutton hot pot which I made from cooked and trimmed mutton breasts.... using the biggest pan I have, plus 2kg of potatoes, 1kg of carrots, ½ kg white onions, salt, pepper, bay leaves from the garden and some stock. Unfortunately no black pudding for this but as with all the “let’s follow a recipe” it’s followed with “ what do we have in” so a bit of making it up as you go along seems to work well for me.
Then, unpacking the second bag of what I thought also held mutton breast, found some cooked chicken from some banty cockerels which I froze when I couldn’t use them all at once. What to do with the chicken? Why not put it in a chicken hot pot same as the mutton?

Using my (no expense spared) mandolin to slice all the veg for both the pans, I made some lovely thin veg in no time at all, although I also ended up having to double the quantities of veg to do both hot pots.
Layers of potatoes, carrots, onions, meat, on top of layers of potatoes, carrots, onions, meat.... anyway you get the idea. Fill the pan up to the top with stock, bring to the boil then cook below simmer for a couple of hours or so, both for the mutton and for the chicken.
Everyone else was out of the house at this point so I had the kitchen all to myself, but the hot pot factory peace was shattered by the return of the family.... young Farmer Sharp Juniors (there are two of them) came in to ask what was I doing (“not sure” I thought.... as ever making it up as I go along with no plan and no meal ever the same twice).

Third, I had four mutton shanks. I browned the mutton shanks until nearly burnt then proceeded to put them in a double oven size roasting dish on a bed of rosemary thyme and some bay leaves, all from the garden, plus whole peeled potatoes, whole carrots and whole peeled onions. For a change, there was no garlic in anything and the results are plain to see looking at Radek’s picture of him eating in the time-honoured style that would have made Henry the VIII proud.

Radio Sharpie - Passionate about Knives

2013-11-18T08:30:00.000+00:00

Listen to this episode

The Pig Idea #FoodWaste

2013-11-15T17:00:00.000+00:00

Let Them Eat Waste

Head and feet etc.

2013-11-15T08:30:00.000+00:00

As a child, I remember well making potted meat with my Nana, using a pigs head, four pig’s feet and a couple of pound of shin, in total yielding about 4-5lb of high quality cooked meat.

This, in some of the better restaurants, is sometimes served as a terrine and with that label comes a measure of respectability (it’s all in the marketing, although there is also a move within the Artisan food sector toward using the less popular cuts like pig heads and feet, or lamb heads and feet).

The first barrier to this demand (small though it may be) is cost, as most slaughter houses don’t have the infrastructure or the skilled staff to process these products in order to comply with existing regulation.

The next issue after cost, is getting the product to market, as only a handful of consumers per retail outlet (be that butchers shop, farm shop or farmer’s market) will buy them.

After the supply and demand situation is resolved, what’s left is the age old problem of education, as the people who know what to do with these products, number not very many in my opinion.

These products take a little more preparation than there is in putting a pan of mince on or frying a steak, but the flavour and value of these under vastly used resources is immense and well worth the effort.

Because the head and feet are called by-products it makes them sound like MRM (mechanically recovered meat) which they most definitely are not. In fact, in the culinary culture of our continental cousins, these parts of the carcass are a much sought after delicacy and consequently, demand a value way above that which currently exists in the U.K. market.

If head and feet get the culinary recognition in this country they deserve, they will come to be appreciated for the marvellous food that they are and we'll have a couple less products to throw in the bin..... In itself fantastic, don't you think?

Young Farmer Sharp - Guest post by Michael Sharp

2013-11-13T08:30:00.000+00:00

As the son of Farmer Sharp, I sometimes find myself in food related conversations before I know it.

I was in a pub the other night, and when I should have been dancing and chatting up the girls, I ended up sat at the bar talking to a farmer for half an hour about sheep, farming and food. Food must just run in my blood.

These conversations don’t just happen just with food industry people either. I often find myself in debates with people - like in one instance, there was a girl at college determined she was going to be a vegetarian, using the justification of ‘killing animals is wrong’, but all the while walking around in leather shoes. Knowing what I know, this got my hackles up and we battled it out about the production of leather for the entire lunch hour. Can’t blame the lass as she was totally uneducated about food, and probably thought a potato came from a tree.

I’m assuming that she can’t be and most certainly isn’t the only person in this group (uneducated about food), and obviously this needs to change if people are to lead better, healthier lifestyles. If I can learn, so can everyone else. They just need a good teacher.

Autumn is well and truly here

2013-11-12T10:57:00.000+00:00

Autumn is here and don’t we know it..... leaves all over, gusty winds, and a bag full of windfall apples from our neighbour..... (have a look at the last of the crumble.....cream coming up).

As we fall into autumn, we start to look for more hearty food like stews and slow roasts, and what better than beef brisket plate (sometimes called short ribs Jacobs ladder). Brisket on the bone IS a bit fatter but at least the fat is honest, if the cattle are grass fed the fat will contain omega 3 oils - not those vegetable style oils used in lots of processed foods but the healthier fish style omega 3’s.

This economically viable joint costs a lot less than other joints. As with other economical cuts of meat it takes a little more effort to prepare, but compensates ewe with massive flavour and tender, succulent meat. It can give you roasts, then make a great mince for lasagne, or, boiled first then roasted to brown and crispy, will give you a stock which when cold (and after removing the fat) will make a hearty and very cheap base for vegetable soup, beef and tomato soup and loads more.

You will be amazed by the reaction of your butcher when asking him for this cut as it is rarely sold over the counter in a joint but is usually boned and used in sausage and burgers etc. In fact, this might be the start of an interesting regular exchange with the butcher, which could if nurtured, yield for you many more economical cuts and interesting recipes.

Dougy Bowes

2013-11-08T08:30:00.000+00:00

Sometimes a product is really special or just simply tremendous, and sometimes an occasion elevates a dining experience beyond description.

Mr Dougy Bowes on the coast road near Ulverston is a producer of such a product. A Galloway is a pretty fantastic beef animal at the best of times but a Galloway grown on the land just down the coast road is without doubt a special thing. I had the pleasure to have a couple of pieces of brisket of a beast from Mr Bowes - ‘twas a Galloway/Limousin cross but looked like it had taken more to the Galloway side.

The occasion was the passing away of a family friend, who to be fair had reached a good age, and the whole thing turned out to be more like a celebration of her life than a funeral. We all gathered in Arnside for the burial, then to a hotel in Grange for the funeral tea. Alan and Ann (the son and daughter, both lifetime friends of mine), along with an eclectic group of friends, all sat around telling loud and raucous funny tales of their life experiences with the deceased. Hopefully, this doesn't sound at all disrespectful, because believe me if you had known Jean for the strong funny eccentric character she was, it was all in order.

On the spur of the moment, I thought they should all come to our house for dinner.. Great but had nothing in big enough to feed ten, which when they got going would be sure to seem like the five thousand had descended.

So I went to the local farm shop Browns in Lindal-in-Furness and was so pleased to find out that he had some of Dougy Bowes’s Galloway - it was a Tuesday so as with most butchers on a Tuesday, it's a a matter of what’s left. Also fortunately for me (point brisket not being the most popular of cuts), two bits of brisket browned off and roasted with only sea salt and cracked black pepper went well with the roasted potatoes and the veg left in the fridge.

The brisket was open roasted on a low heat, and the roasting dish deglazed with a liberal several glugs of good red wine brought by Alan who is also a wine merchant. I personally could have just had gravy, roast potatoes and red wine the gravy was so fantastic, but in fact, the brisket turned out to be indescribably good.

We had a great meal, which was a fitting tribute to the woman who always fed you and entertained you royally.