Meet Your Local Meat Man

Fillet for Anna, Ribeye for me. Two exceptional steaks.

Because this weekend was as close as we could get to coincide with the anniversary of my lovely, beloved Anna and I meeting, (Five years. Yes, she is a saint and very brave, yadda, yadda, yadda) we decided to have a slap up meal for two. Which meant we were going to have steak. And not just any steak. I wanted to get her the finest steak I could find; true loves deserve true loveliness.

Anna’s brief: No fat, no sinews, no toughness. That’ll be fillet then.
My brief: Nicely marbled,  aged, big. So rump or ribeye.

With my tiny mind programmed to buy steak, I headed off into London for one of my photo walks where generally I dawdle and with a bit of luck, get lost. I like being lost. If you are lost, there’s virgin sights to see. I fully support the virginity of sights, because I have the attention span of a chicken. If I’ve seen it before, it is old news. Give me new. Also, being lost gives me a chance to think. Yesterday, I mainly thought of these things:

1. It is supposed to be cold. Why isn’t it?
2. Is there a single retailer in all of England Her Majesty’s Realm that understands that just because its getting close to winter, I don’t (and neither does anyone else) need to buy arctic clothing. (I am looking for a light jacket that keeps out the wind and rain, with enough pockets for all the crap very important stuff I lug around. I do not want a bloody fleece-lined/blanket/lined, blizzard-proof Eskimo jacket. Got it? If it gets too cold, I will choose to wear a jersey under the jacket.)
3. My new, very expensive mountain boots that I am trying to break in are damaging my feet. Not rubbing and making blisters, no, they are creating havoc with the very structure of my feet. As I write this, my feet still feel broken.
4. My camera bag is so bloody heavy
5. I am sweating, my back soaked (I had to borrow a replacement T-shirt) thanks to the camera bag and my too-hot-but-waterproof jacket
6. Why am I lugging a full length umbrella, a heavy duty tripod and a full camera bag around London and not even taking pictures?
7. I need more hands
8. I wish my camera strap gripped my shoulder so it doesn’t keep slipping off
9. I hope the butcher is open when I get there
10. How does fluff get into a belly button?

So eventually, after a suitably long, sweaty, damp, generally out-of-sorts walk from Euston to Wapping, the last 30 minute of which was in the blustery drizzle, I arrived at my friend Ian’s house. Ian was going to show me the way to his local butcher, after which we were going to visit the Captain Kidd for a couple of pints. As is always the case when I’m with a good friend, things began to improve, markedly.

The Butcher

When I grow up, I want to be a butcher. There is something that I find very appealing about the craft of butchery. I’d love to be able to dismantle a carcass, knowledgeably judge cuts of meat and to impart advice on how best to cook them to customers who return again and again. I love watching a butcher at work; whilst we were there, Ian bought a rabbit which the butcher cut up in just seconds. Neat, efficient expertise, all the time telling us how he always sells hares with their blood so that people can make jugged hare, how the head is one of the best bits (for making stock) and suggesting recipes to Ian.

And, like a proper butcher, he was probably in his late sixties and was wearing a tie beneath his apron. I thoroughly approve! I fear for Britain’s high street butchers. These old-school boys contribute so much to the vibrance of our towns and cities, yet the march of the corporate behemoth is squeezing them out, one by one, replacing their carefully chosen, artfully cut meat and generously imparted knowledge with red-dyed, souless, corporate box-ticking meat, sold in punnets or vacuum packs.  And to my growing regret/feeling of resignation, I fall for the sleight of hand called “convenience”.

I have to examine this term “convenience”. Yes, it is quick and easy to buy everything from a supermarket and lets be fair, supermarkets can and do sell some pretty decent meat – and often at a really good price. It can make great sense to buy from a supermarket. until:

• Someone’s little darling pushes a trolley with great force into your Achilles tendon. (I glare and make the little darling cry with fear. Proper fear. Fear that engulfs mummy too)
• Someone’s little darling throws a tantrum, the noise of which is inescapable. It is simply down to luck that I  have not been in the kitchen department when this happens because there are knives there and I’m well, unstable.
• It is Saturday and every pensioner who has had all week to do his/her shopping decides to hobble/wobble/at snails pace around the aisles.
• There are generally “other people” in my supermarket. It will not do.
• I get angry because yet again, all the empty parking spaces have empty trollies parked in them
• I get psychotic beacuse people who are very clearly NOT disabled have parked in the disabled spaces
• I get enraged due to the fact that there are certain people who believe it is okay with me to park anywhere they like except in a parking space
• The bloody check-outs are being manned, yet again by dribbling, dirty, snot-wiping (literally) quarter-wits
• The self-checkouts are yet again, out of order.
• Or if the self checkouts are working, some utter, utter toilet brain is attempting to check out a big trolley full of groceries in the baskets only zone. Jeeves, hand me my Holland & Holland twelve bore!

God! What a grumpy old bugger! “Does not play well with others”.

So, as you can see, there is actually a lot less convenience in supermarkets than we are led to believe. Buying meat from a good, friendly butcher is not about convenience. It is about caring. Caring about what you eat, caring about how  the animals you eat have been treated. Caring about the community you live in. Caring about the family of the butcher. Caring about the farmers who supply the butcher. Caring about the end result, when you open the oven and that gorgeously aromatic blast of  hot roasted air fills your kitchen and mixes with the glow of fulfilment that you have so deservingly earned. Your life is enhanced.

The warm, satisfying pleasure of an encounter with a small, lively shop is part retail, part social club and part theatre. Its not just shopping. Treat it with respect. Look forward to it. My advice is this: Our lives are too busy and our wallets too thin to avoid the time-savings and knock-down prices of supermarkets, but when you want to relax and take it easy, when you want to have some “me” time, go down to your (or someone else’s) local craft butchery.  You won’t regret it – and, you’ll get proper value for money.

Coming soon: I cook those two steaks…