Three Bird Roast

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

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.

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Roadkill recipe

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

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.

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Review of The PigIdea

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

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.

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Meat, Food, and Farming: Pig Swill RePost

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

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.

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Head and feet etc.

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

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

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

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.

Pulled mutton shoulder - Recipe

Recently, seen that sometime cook Tom Kerridge on the TV with pulled shoulder of Lamb (only joking, he is good value, a lot of man for your money).

Here's my more traditional pulled mutton shoulder, which I think is a much better choice for the very slow cooking methodology required for pulled meat.

An essential requirement for this recipe is a renaissance quality mutton shoulder (only available from proper butcher farm shops or farmers markets). 

The great thing about this recipe is that ewe can do a full mutton shoulder and have it for a few days or use part of the shoulder and this will do just as well.

The classic accompaniment for sheep meat, lamb or mutton is anchovies. As the anchovies are salted that’s the first of the seasoning requirements, the second (and second only to the anchovies) is the garlic then, after those two in importance comes the rosemary.

So here’s the plan;-

1. Get the shoulder or part shoulder fat side down in a very hot cast iron frying pan and brown all of the shoulder that you can to the point of nearly burning, then make deep incisions to insert the anchovies,  garlic and rosemary. 
2. Rub plenty of proper sea salt if necessary brushing the outside lightly with water so the salt will stay put, and grind some fresh black pepper in as well and put it all in a pre-heated oven at about 150-160 Degrees Celsius for just under an hour per lb.
3. It is ok to either sit the shoulder on either a bed of nice veggies, like fennel or parsnips, or (as I like it) to have nothing underneath so you get a fantastic gravy to warm the leftovers in the following day.

Also as an aside, in my mind no sheep meat dish is finished without a little mint sauce.

Highgrove - The Mutton Renaissance Annual Dinner

Last month saw my return visit to the Orangery dining room at Highgrove, the country residence of Prince Charles, His Royal Highness. Prince Charles is the patron of the Mutton Renaissance Campaign.

As one of the founding members of the Mutton Renaissance Campaign (which this year celebrates its tenth anniversary), I feel as if we have only just begun the rehabilitation of mutton to the culinary lexicon of the general public. Although all the members of the committee are clear that we’ve made great strides forward, we’re also clear we have a long way to go yet. 

Before lunch, we were treated to a walk around the grounds and the gardens and although my wife is the gardener at home, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was an eclectic mix of garden styles and the guide was funny and very knowledgeable. 

We then went into the Highgrove shop to peruse the goods.... needless to say I didn’t buy anything (probably could have bought a cap but I have six or more already). 

The starter was a simple goat curd, walnut and beetroot salad. The main course was a perfect simple treatment of the Lleyn - Highgrove home farm Mutton aged for five weeks. The cannon or loin fillet was cooked using the sous vide method then browned in the pan to finish it off, and served alongside a perfect mini pulled shoulder pie.

For desert we were treated to an apple and quince tart with Crème Anglaise. I do love a good dessert; in fact I could almost miss the main course and just go straight for it.

After our meal we went to Home Farm, where Prince Charles’s farm manager David Wilson gave us a tour of their organic farm - showcasing a field of mustard (which tasted like a very peppery rocket), the cull ewes on a reseeded clover field and lots more. 

As we were walking to the tractor, it started raining even harder than it had been when we were walking round the garden and grounds..... I said to David all we needed was for the rain to be blowing horizontal and then I would feel really at home. It was a great testament to my old houndstooth Harris Tweed jacket and flat cap that I remained perfectly dry, not to mention the borrowed wellies as I had forgotten mine.

We then went to the milking parlour where we watched the Ayrshire cows walk in to be milked. This was great on so many levels, as the cows were up to twelve years old which is very unusual in this day and age. I then got a lift to Kemble station with Alan Bird who now runs his own Restaurant, Bird of Smithfield (opposite Poultry Street), which was very cool.   

Cured and Smoked Herdwick Mutton

There has always been a rich tradition of curing and smoking sheep meat wherever flocks of sheep were kept. The same applies to flocks of goats.  Cured meats are the old fashioned version of a fridge - keeping protein wholesome and long lasting.

Mature Herdwick wether, are castrated male sheep which were kept to an older age. They have a deeper flavour, a dark, tight, grained texture to the meat and were sometimes used to cure. 

They give a bigger leg than a ewe (a mature lambing female) and one of the things about curing is that older animals have a more appropriate ph for curing. The older legs cure more successfully and have a much more complex flavour profile (which is one of the reasons why the best Prosciutto’s are made from older animals).

It’s normally assumed that this product was produced in times gone by in the “continental way” of producing air-dried fancy salami, but this is a wrong assumption.

Cumbrian cured mutton isn’t produced this way and one of the reasons for there not being an established tradition in the UK of Italian style salami curing is the good old British weather and there is nowhere better to understand this than in Cumbria - it never rains in Cumbria (honestly, if you ask the millions of visitors we get to the lakes you will get probably get different comments about the weather). ;-)

The high humidity does mean that there isn’t the possibility of making any air-dried product that would be safe to eat. However, in this day and age there is an ever growing group of artisan salami producers and wholesalers who do quite nicely with a little technological help.

The cured mutton is to be cooked as you would do your ham and eggs for breakfast or for dinner at night. To add additional shelf life to the cured leg (and I guess extra flavour), it is (was) smoked, not in a purpose-built smoke house but in a smoke box built in to the back of the chimney. These disused stone smoke boxes can be found in many old farmhouses all over the lake district.

These Herdwick hams are not the mild flavoured gammon ham we have become accustomed to today, and as with all the things that aren’t mild or insipid it is an acquired taste. In my opinion though, it’s an amazing one. In the past, there also wouldn’t have been the consistency of product expected by the modern consumer, but maybe, just maybe that is part of the hams’ charm.

Mutton

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Pasta making

Pasta making is really fulfilling and easy.

The kids love helping in-between the Kindle and Lego, and even though it may not be not cheaper to do, homemade pasta has loads better flavour and texture and making it has to be much better than watching inane television.

I had been reading up on spelt wheat already and picked up some spelt flour from my friend Matt the baker from Bread Ahead at Borough Market.

The flour itself looks a little off white, not speckled like whole meal flour just off white, and otherwise it's pretty much like any other flour you see.

Place the flour on your work top and make it into a volcano crater so the lightly whisked eggs can be put into the middle and gently mixed in. Strange analogy ahead - it feels like when you were a kid helping your Dad mix up some cement while not letting the water escape.

Once the spelt flour, eggs and a pinch of salt were mixed well together then out came the pasta machine - well it’s just two adjustable metal rollers, but has to be said, is a lovely piece of Italian engineering style and functionality as only the Italians can do.

The kids turned the handle whilst I was working the pasta mix by progressively rolling and folding the dough thinner and thinner, then resting it under a tea towel.

After this, I used the cutting aspect of the pasta machine to give us tagliatelle. Last bit of the process is to blanch or to fully boil the pasta, after which you can either eat it, put it in the fridge, or even bag and freeze it.

There are lots of funky things that you can add to pasta like squid ink for black pasta, coco powder for brown, pesto for green, beetroot for red or natural food dyes for all the other colours. My overriding memory of spelt pasta is that it just tastes loads better, and this of course is the very best reason for making your own pasta.

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Bounty of the hedgerow

In the hedgerow this year are an abundance of autumnal fruits like blackberries - the fruit of the thorny avaricious weed that is the bramble. 

A couple weeks ago, my lad Radek and I went just five hundred yards from our house to pick blackberries. As a part of the essential tool kit, I took my very special (amazing) walking stick made by my very good friend Simon Grant-Jones, U.K.  champion blacksmith, and a milk carton adapted for blackberry-ing ....really all ewe need for a successful day out.;-)

Radek had his own cut of a plastic milk bottle, but his picking technique consisted of mostly “one for the pot, most in his mouth”.

The requirements for blackberry-ing (in addition to the fine walking stick) are, an immunity to nettle stings (as when you find brambles, you inevitably find nettles), and an eagle eye out for the bramble thorns. 

Be prepared for the fact that the best fruit are totally out of reach, hence the need for the stick. You’ll find also, that as you pull that lovely group of perfectly ripe fruit, unless ewe are lucky and can put your adapted milk carton under the ripe fruit to catch them, the best of them will fall on the floor into a really inaccessible place.

Also, as you let the branch spring back into place, the fruit you missed that were obscured by a bunch of leaves, will always look better than the fruit you just picked.

After you’ve spent an hour or two in the middle of a tangled mess of thorny brambles, the rewards of a blackberry and apple pie or crumble are second to none.  Without doubt the most rewarding and enjoyable pudding ever. Sat round the table with the kids eating you’ll find it even better with a bit of custard or fresh cream. 

Those of you in towns and cities will probably find this process just as easy as I did, and if not this year, try it the next as the relentless bramble takes hold of any ground given half a chance.

Food: cooking and sharing

Although people still say they don't have time to cook proper food, there are many pleasures they miss.

Food shared is food loved, whether it be simple buttered bread or something a bit more adventurous. Having the crack around your meals makes the cook happy to share the fruits of their labour, and enables the others gathered round the table to talk, eat and share common bonds.I think that the more we can make it more fashionable, sexy or whatever it takes to push food, cooking and sharing further up everybody's list of priorities, then the better off we all will be. 

Sometimes it's just the fear of failure that some people see as a good and valid reason to keep going back to the ready meal or the take away. It's up to the Do's to do what we can to help the Won't Dos and Can't Do's.

It may have sparked controversy but Jamie's campaign is along the right lines: big screen TV's are always less important than Food.

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Rubbish

Read an article recently in the Guardian. It hinted that the fall in UK self-sufficiency doesn’t matter. If this was indeed the intention of the article, it is in my opinion, a rubbish statement to make.

Food production matters. What we aren’t growing, we aren’t adding to the global pot. The reporter’s argument was that since it's a global market and we do import food, the declining domestic numbers/percentages don't matter. But declining production absolutely does matter. The more high quality food we produce, the more high quality food we can contribute to the global pot for others (i.e. other countries and human beings). Rant over.

Seriously, though, we have to understand that a selfish view of food production and consumption is not acceptable. There is a bigger picture which we need to deal with together. By together, I mean globally as well as domestically. For example, the European Union was set up as a single market with a policy for this self same issue. It's called the Common Agricultural Policy (the clue is in the name).  I agree it isn’t working exactly how it should. 

Finally, please don't demean farmers and the important work they do by implying food is just like steel or glass, as it is way too important and precious to be treated like just another commodity.

Local food

The local food movement, which is of great interest to all of us or certainly should be, is a very complex issue. 

While we all applaud the new drive toward "localism", it is the duty of those at the artisan/production end of food to move things on a bit. 

The strides we have made in the last few years are really quite amazing, and now, the much more difficult thing to achieve will be to move "localism" outside the foodie fraternity.

The hardest nuts to crack would be those people for whom value for money and cost are the biggest motivators. The problem with this group is not their unwillingness to act, but the lack of the right tools to do so; tools like education and the means to generate the raw material to cook with - you might say, the ultimate conundrum of the chicken or the egg. 

When we do crack it, the food culture will change beyond all recognition. Maybe then we'll be able to look back with pride, at all the many people who fought so hard for this change in so many ways, remembering that it was the many individual drops of rain into a bucket that eventually filled it.

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 local hostelries. Normal kitchen waste would be taken home to feed his omnivorous pigs, and this would make the pigs a little over fat but choc full of flavour (not dissimilar to the much vaunted rare breeds pork of today's Artisan butchers).  The first reason for not feeding the pigs of today entirely on swill is the modern requirement for uniformity of size and fat cover of the animal. It has been ascertained that the way to get more uniform carcasses is to spilt the feed into twenty percent cereal ration and eighty percent swill. There is also a concern for balancing the carbon footprint generated by cereal/ soya consumption, but the consensus is that there is no way to entirely cut out the soya consumption by pigs straight away.  The second reason, is the disastrous Heddon-on-the-wall foot and mouth outbreak.  This made legislators run scared from swill feeding, and an EU wide ban on swill feeding pigs very quickly followed.  It seemed at the onset of the ban that most people hadn't considered the crime of food waste to landfill as an issue .... This issue always has in my view, been one of the most important food and farming issues. Thankfully, it's also a view that many sections of the media now seem to be adopting.

How to deal with your butcher

When you think about the best product, it is always made or sold by a skilled technician and has to be to earn the label BEST, but also, it must always be made or sold with PASSION.

Its an odd thing passion, as ewe would often only associate it with art or maybe great Michelin star chefs and not necessarily butchers, but remember without the very best ingredients those Michelin star chefs wouldn't be able to create that masterpiece. The other thing maybe to remember is that doing a difficult, dirty, physically demanding job means (and being one of them I'm qualified to comment) that butchers need to be approached using kid gloves. 

First tip if you want something out of the ordinary is, don't be a turkey customer. What is a turkey customer? - well, this is the person who uses their butcher once a year, walking into the butchers saying "can I order a turkey, the one I had last year was great." Clearly your butcher hasn't thought of or dealt with any other samples of meat since Christmas last year.

The turkey customer will get what they ask for, but throughout the year if you want something special, ask for well aged mutton leg or beef onglet for example (picture below) and make sure the turkey customer gets pushed to the back of the queue.

Seventeen century mutton and oyster sausages

Our culinary history is a fascinating subject and in food terms, a gold (or graphene) mine.

A few years ago, my friend, the world renowned food historian Ivan Day, and I decided that we would make an old surf and turf recipe - Mutton and Oyster sausages. 

The recipe, if that's how ewe would describe it, was in an accounts book of the kitchen in a Cumbrian Big house which was only able to tell us the kitchen purchases (the ingredients) and had no measurements or methodology. Ivan was able to extrapolate from the existing knowledge of future versions of this recipe so that we could make them. 

We used the best quality Herdwick mutton, the freshest Colchester oysters and some spices that I had never heard of like long peppers. 

It was the most amazing sausage I have ever tasted, and I have tasted a few sausages during my thirty seven years in butchery. The problem as ever with things like this, is that they were made to be consumed on the day and have no shelf life .....it’s a shame, as I am sure given a chance, that they'd be venerated in our high end Michelin star eateries across the world.

Luing Cattle

Luing is a small island off the west coast of Scotland and the farmers there have a breed of cattle second to none. 

The Luing cattle are a small, just above belt buckle, high breed of cattle, and, a cross between the iconic Highland cattle and the beef short horn. Both these breeds of cattle individually produce magnificent beef but the crossbreed is better adapted to the windswept Isle of Luing. 

One of the advantages amongst many is its carcass size - if ewe like your sirloin steak rare (as ewe should) a thick Luing steak won't break the bank. In comparison, to get a thick rare steak out of commercial cattle like British blue it would have to be at least 450g (about a pound in weight). Do the math.

Watch out for Luing in proper shops will keep ewe informed.

Agriculture today

On the train to and from London I’ve been noticing in quite a few fields, the reeds and the rushes left over from recent months of imitation wetlands all over the country. Here we have a reminder of how finely balanced the farming systems around the world are, and, for those of us involved in agriculture, the continuing awe at how a high tech society like the UK can be so easily slowed to a crawl by weather. 

Yet more evidence of the importance of considering food farmers as the essential, respected parts of society that they are. 

The Wild Lake District

It is assumed by tourists who come to the picturesque Lake District that it is a natural untamed environment  - not a bit of it! 

Within the UK, our environment has been shaped by centuries of food and forestry production and the Lake District is no exception to that - the hill sides were deforested to accommodate the iconic and stout Herdwick sheep. Some of the best lamb and mutton in the world (and as an expert I say that without fear of contradiction) is produced from the Herdwick sheep. In Elizabeth I’s time Herdwick mutton was known as the Queen’s mutton and was the best ewe could get!

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Sloe Gin

It is my duty to tell ewe that this drink sneaks up behind ewe and pounces!

Sloes, the fruit of the blackthorn, are a small, purple, plum-like fruit found wild in hedge rows up and down the country.

There's no better use for them than for making into sloe gin. As a fruit they are dry, bitter and not very appetising but, made into sloe gin it’s like drinking fruity nectar - deceptively alcoholic and perfect for adding a taste of summer to the winter evenings.

The harvesting process is particularly easy but timing is crucial as it is best to harvest the fruit after a decent frost (this breaks the skin and helps with the infusion)..... soon after this the fruit will fall off on its own.

Here's a way of ensuring the fruit gets the frost treatment - pick them a week earlier and put them in the freezer. Remove them after checking that the skin has broken then, leave the fruit gin and some light Muscovado sugar to infuse in something like a Kilner jar for a few weeks, decant the precious liquid and put into bottles. 

Store in a dark cupboard for consumption later to chase away the winter cold. 

Ewe can even keep the used sloes as a bitter cherry for addition to cocktails. My mate Graeme the chicken man said it was "incredible."

Antibiotics resistance

There is an ongoing argument about the state of antibiotic resistant bacteria and as ever the overall picture is a complicated one. 

The worst kept secret in agriculture pharmaceuticals is that prophylactic antibiotics are widely used as a growth promoter and disease inhibitor mostly in pig and poultry production.

Consequently those antibiotics are passed on through the meat to us... not news to us insiders but it in my opinion this fact should be on banner disaster news headlines across the world! 

Can ewe imagine a scenario with your doctor saying “I am sorry that chest infection has no cure”? I can.

Even in the face of little hope, one major start would be to remove antibiotics from agriculture - a difficult thing to achieve, but not an impossible one. To start the change of antibiotic resistance, pork and poultry production would have to be more extensive. We would get lots of advantages from this, like better animal welfare and better quality of meat but it would cost more, so we’d eat less.... Eat less Eat better seems a win win to me.

Zwarble vs Herdwick

This week I saw for the first time Zwarble sheep in detail and up close. Strangely fond of black fleeced sheep. They are good looking and as my grandfather said "like a decent table leg on each corner, not coming out the same hole", good overall confirmation (good fleshy carcass) and very solid.

I have to say though, they are nowhere near the much vaunted, and the much venerated Herdwick sheep of the Lake District who in the last few months and after several years have achieved the PDO (Product Designated Origin) status - Slow Food at its European best.

If you were to buy both a Zwarble meat and Herdwick meat, the Herdwick would win hands down.

Perfect examples of high quality Herdwick meat

The pictures below are of Herdwick lamb (first pic) and Herdwick mutton (second pic).

You can see from the fat on the mutton that its got a nice creamy colour, and that the very deep colour of the muscle is almost 'beefy' both in the mutton and even in the very young lamb. 

There is a purpleness to it that isn't normally present in spring lamb (this lamb came very early in the season too, even for a Herdwick). The best bit is when you eat it, it'll have a robust flavour which also isn't normally present in spring lamb!

Winner of Knife Sharpening (and other skills) course

The winner of the Knife Sharpening (and other skills) course is Martin Gott of Cartmel in Cumbria. 

For those of you that didn't get it right, take comfort in the fact that it took Martin 3 whole guesses to get there (Martin the Butcher....hmmmmm)

Stay tuned for the video of said course with "fair weather butcher" mein gott Martin!

Find him at Cartmel Cheeses. 

Passionate about Bread

My friend Mr. Jones who's all about the bread (and the brownies), is the most artistic man I've ever met. To quote the great man,  "With bread and confectionary, as with all good food stuffs, technique is one thing but passion, is everything".

Find him at Bread Ahead at Borough Market.

Mint Mint

Mint grows in my garden like a ruthless weed .....every year it gets cut and turned into the amazing condiment that is mint sauce - white malt vinegar, balsamic vinegar, light brown muscovado sugar and lots and lots of finely chopped dried or partially dried mint. 

At the mo, having a fine leg of Renaissance quality mutton slowly roasted with mature dry salted anchovies and fresh rosemary and thyme. After roasting, added a couple of major glugs of red wine into the roasting tin after removing the roast to rest..... this was all served with a liberal amount of horseradish mash and  roasted vegetables. 

All this is only improved by drinking some of the ten year old Barolo (not sure if this would be what you’d put in the gravy mind), and of course liberal helpings of fantastic mint sauce.

Kids eat meat based pasta.

It has been reported that kids think among other peculiar things that pasta is made from meat, and tomatoes are grown underground like potatoes. 

This sounds unbelievable but in fact, this demonstrates how far we have become disconnected from the farmer and his products. 

It's admittedly a big job to start the reversal after decades of disassociating food and food products from the farm, and to begin countering the food industries relentless homogenisation and sterilisation of food. As we try to regain the respect and veneration for food and its producers, where do we start?

Back to the KIDS! I'm guessing it will take us one or two generations to gain momentum.......

I said to a music journalist when he said we'll never change it - "well its a bucket of water if we all put one or two drops in eventually it gets filled". 

A consolation with all this work we need to do in changing our food culture, is that it's great fun enthusing young people about food. Try it. ;-)

Happy Kids/Happy Father's

In all the debate about food there is one overriding force for change.......KIDS. Kids are the future of food production and consumption and the easiest way to drive better production systems (we all know that there are many things that need to be changed).

I propose a kind of reverse brain washing, opposite to the techniques that some of the omnipresent burger chains have put to use in the past.

There is nothing better than a child badgering their parents (or the uncles or the aunts or any other elders in their lives) to buy better food (they usually win too!).

Have fun doing food things with the kids this week!

Little Farmersharp at the mincer....