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The Butts Farm Shop
In This Section...
(1) Eating Quality
(2) Animal Health
(3) Good Farming Practice
(4) All Done on a Local Basis
(5) The Skill of the Craft Butcher
(6) Breeds |
 Why is Meat from Rare Breeds so Special?
The Skill of the Craft Butcher
© Traditional Breeds Meat Marketing Company Ltd
Again, this is an area where there are huge
differences between the mass market and what we do. Meat has to be
treated with full deference and understanding in order for it to be
the best thing on your plate.
One of the most important aspects is hanging. To get the best
flavour, all meat except from the very youngest animals, must be
hung. Remember a year or two back when Jamie Oliver, (who must have
been hugely embarrassed by the whole thing), came on our TV screens
night after night exclaiming that Sainsbury’s were the only people
to hang beef for 21 days on their special range? Well, we soon put
them straight on that with a complaint to the Advertising Standards
people who got them to change the voiceover to ‘the only supermarket
who hang beef for 21 days’.
And what does that tell us? Well firstly that all the other meat in
Sainsbury’s and all the meat in the other supermarkets is not hung
properly. Even when Sainsbury’s claim to do something right, (albeit
on a tiny proportion of their product), they and the other
supermarkets do not hang their meat in the traditional way that most
of our Accredited Butchers do. Instead of hanging a carcase in a
chiller on the bone to mature at its own pace, they debone the
carcase and vacuum-pack the various cuts to mature in an artificial,
oxygen-free environment. The skill and craft of the butcher count
for nought as far as they are concerned.
We
are working with the research team at Bristol University on a
project that clearly shows that the traditional way of hanging beef
on the bone actually improves the flavour.
Beef is not a standardised product from first to last. An
experienced butcher can tell from its look and feel when it hits
perfection and it might be in 17 days, 20 days or even 25 days. The
best quality food deserves this level of knowledge and respect. And
the same goes for other meat too – pork, lamb, mutton, poultry and
game.
The way that meat is cut is important too. In the mass market, meat
is cut on a production line – exactly the same time after time after
time. Our butchers are used to dealing with stock where every
carcase is different from the last. Bigger, smaller, fatter, leaner,
rounder, flatter, longer, shorter. They cut every one on their
merits to give you the customer the very best.
You wouldn’t let just anyone cut your hair or service your car, so
why treat meat differently?
The Breeds That Make The Difference
 As we stated in the Introduction, this initiative was set up by the
charity, the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, to help conserve rare
breeds and raise awareness in them. But which are the rare breeds
that we promote?
On the following page, you'll find lists of the breeds of Beef
Cattle, Sheep and Pigs that we think are so special. These are the
old British breeds that once made our farming the envy of the world.
There is a sentence by each about its origins and how it will taste.
Take pleasure in trying a selection of each and savouring the
differences – just remember that compared to what else is in the
market, these are different models of Rolls Royce. If you find that
you prefer one to another, that’s great but even the one that you
didn’t rate so highly is going to be miles ahead of anything from
the mass market. o
Continue to the Breeds |
