A butcher is for life not just for Christmas – a tale of meat, Metros and matriarchs

No one taught me more about the importance of using your local butcher than my maternal Grandparents Ron and Barb May. I spent a lot of my Oxfordshire childhood with them, partly to help my fraught mother after the birth of my twin brothers just 18 months after the joyous arrival of my hyperactive self.

Having a forthright wife and four daughters meant that Gramps often struggled to get a word in edge ways. He worked long hours at his shop, Mays Carpets on the Cowley Road, but he would always finish early on Saturday lunchtimes and make a trip to the shops in Marston to get the meat and vegetables for Sunday lunch. One rather fateful afternoon he went to the butchers but returned empty handed, soaking wet and without his car, a yellow Austin Metro.

The women in the house were, as usual, talking at great speed and at times over each other. It took around half an hour before my Nana noticed the lack of shopping and the state of his clothes. He explained that he had left the keys in the car with the engine running while he went into the butchers (a common practice in those days). When he returned the rust bucket had been nicked. He had walked all the way back up the steep hill on Headley Way in the pouring rain then stood for half an hour waiting to get his words out. Nana chastised him but his reply was something that will always stay with me. “Be fair Barb I couldn’t get a word in edgeways! Everyone is talking but no one is listening.”

David John, the butcher, still remembers the story of the yellow Metro to this day, the last time I saw him I told him it was part of my Gramp’s eulogy. When I’m in Oxford I always make a point of going to his shop which is now in the Covered Market in the centre of town. His game pies are one of my favourite Christmas treats, but I know that if I want butchers like him to remain part of our high street we need to use them all year round. Many people right now will be thinking about Christmas dinner and making a ‘special trip’ to the butcher for their meat. The next time they set foot through their butchers’ door will be Christmas 2013.

The sad fact is that in the mid 1980’s there were around 22,000 high street butchers. This fell to just 6,553 in 2010, according to Ed Bedington, Editor of Meat Trades Journal. Part of the reason they thrived in the past was because people, like my grandparents, used them all year round. I’m part of The Meat Crusade, which is campaigning to save the high street butcher. So I am asking you to think about what our high streets will look like without the butcher. Sadly it really is a case of use them or lose them.

Butchery and Yorkshire - two of my favourite things combined into one!

This weekend I’ll be going to Thirsk to see Andrew from Johnsons Butchers do a butchery demo at the Welcome Yorkshire festival. The demo will be held at 1.30pm on Sunday 29^th July in Thirsk’s historic market square in the cookery theatre. Once Andrew has finished his demo he'll be raffling off the meat for Macmillan cancer support, so it's not only educational you might just win your Sunday dinner!

After that I’ll probably peruse the food market  and try out the various samples on offer, all in the name of research of course! The festival celebrates all things Yorkshire, from its people to its food. Personally I can’t think of a better way to spend a pre-Yorkshire Day weekend.

Why shop at your local butcher?

 

Once or twice a month I throw off the invisible shackles my limbs have to the PC and I hit the road to visit some of the UK’s best butchers for work. Most butchers are in their shop boning out meat and baking pies at 6am when most of us are still tucked up in our beds. The ever competitive high street means they have to stay one step ahead of the game to stay on top.

Many are not only selling meat but they also offer hot and cold sarnies, cakes, fresh fruit and veg and there are even a few who will let you use their Wi-Fi. I have yet to meet an unapproachable butcher but from speaking to friends and family I seem to hear the same thing. 

They want to visit their butcher, they know the meat from them will be so much tastier, but something is holding them back.  The vast array of meat on offer in a good butchers shop is way beyond the poultry offering (yes bad pun I know) you see in a conventional supermarket. But sometimes this puts some people off as they don't know how to cook it.

But your local butcher is just crying out to talk to you about this, when they aren’t busy cutting up meat they’re eating it so they can give you really good advice when it comes to cooking. The other preconception people have is they think it will be expensive, well yes if you choose to live on filet mignon all week it will be.

But if you plan ahead and do some savvy meal planning you can save a fortune. How often have you bought meat from the supermarket cooked it and thrown half of it away? Just think of what you could have done with it?

Last year I took a top side and roasted it for Sunday lunch, then I used the left overs and made meals that would feed a family of four for a week click here for the recipes. Not only were the dishes tasty but they were varied so you didn’t feel as though you were ploughing through a week of never ending beefy overload.

There are also some great forgotten cuts that you can cook with that deliver maximum taste with minimal impact on the wallet. The below recipe is part of The Meat Crusade cookbook which will be coming out late 2012/early 2013 and uses that great forgotten cut shin of beef. I came up with the dish when I was on a post Glastonbury re-charge holiday in the West Country.  This area was once notorious for smugglers wrecking ships off the coast and looting the contents, which was usually French brandy or port from Portugal.

This recipe originally used a whole bottle of port, I’ve tried this and suggest that you don’t, if you do don’t come crying to me. Wine is a vast improvement and it also means that as cook you can treat yourself to a glass. See a thrify meal and I’m think about you dear reader, what more could you ask for!

The beetroot adds a really nice twist to the flavour, although originally it was added to hide the presence of the port should the customs man come a knocking. Whilst it’s no way near as complex as something from the kitchens at El Bulli it delivers great taste with minimal effort. Perfect for the haphazard weather we’re having at the moment.

Smugglers’ shin of beef

 

 

Ingredients

900g shin of beef

25g flour

25g beef dripping or cooking oil

½ pint red wine

¾ pint beef stock

1 onion

110g cooked beetroot cubed

Bundle of fresh herbs tied together with string –bay leaf, thyme and rosemary

Salt and pepper

To cook
Ask your butcher to remove any excess fat from the meat and dice it into cubes.

Pre-heat the oven to 150°C/300°F/Gas 2. On the hob melt the dripping in an oven proof casserole dish until it is completely melted.

Now add the beef and fry for 2 to 3 mins, reduce the heat and add the onion. Cook until lightly browned, stir in the flour and add the beef stock slowly stirring constantly to dissolve the flour and prevent any lumps forming.

Now add the wine, herb bundle and a pinch of salt and pepper, bring to a rolling boil then pop on the lid. Transfer to the oven and cook for 1½ to 2 hours adding the beetroot after the first hour.

Check the dish regularly and add more wine if it begins to dry out (if it doesn’t you can always treat yourself to a cheeky glass).

Serve with carrots and new potatoes or any root vegetable you like.

The Meat Crusade

Last year I started working on The Meat Crusade, a campaign to put real butchers’ meat back on the dinner table. It’s all about supporting a great British institution that delivers great quality meat to homes across the UK. According to Meat Trades Journal there used to be some 22,000 in the mid-90s. In 2010, there were just 6,553.

This video was one of the first projects I worked on for the campaign and it gives you an insight into what we are trying to do. For more information visit the campaign’s website.