The rumours of my blogs demise are true

I would like to thank those people who have read and hopefully enjoyed my blog. 

This has been a massive learning curve and my understanding of just what goes into sustaining a blog. I will be concentrating on my presenting and Teaching passing on my knowledge of meat food and farming.
Quite honestly more of  an orator than a writer.
www.farmersharp.co.uk
Twitter Farmersharp opinionated as ever

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

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.

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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)

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

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.

 

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