Sausage in lard

[hiraeth]

Not had proper brawn for years , cant stand the stuff they pass off as brawn in the shops now. Proper butchers are getting scarce , i have to travel to Cardiff to get chittlings and bath chaps, i have found one butchers in swansea that still does pigs trotters.

 

[rik_uk3]

with the 29p sausages in lard - you could use the sausages to bait a big fish when out at sea and use the lard to grease yourself up against the cold in case you fall in. its got to be better than eating them.

The brawn on Victorian farm reminded me of the 'potted heid' that i was force fed as a kid. it was truly foul stuff no matter how much ketchup you put on it.

and in case anybody is interested, I have a bag of about 20 lamb hearts in the freezer. if anyone knows of a recipe for stuffing them, I could take them to the next scottish meet up...

EDIT: for those who like their posh offal, the hearts are from organically mollycoddled Shetland lambs.

You don't know how to cook lamb's hearts, and yet you slag off tinned sausage in lard, you are a cheeky (young?) bugger

 

[locum76]

i didn't say i dont know how to cook them, just asked if anyone has a recipe

where i come from offal is just chopped up and then flung in a stomach with other 'bits' and oatmeal. lamb hearts are a bit of a delicacy if i'm not mistaken, i much more used to the cheap potted heid.

 

[Kepis]

For those who wont eat MRM or cheap cuts of meat, trying being out of work for 6 months, trying to pay a mortgage, keep the kids clothed, shoed, fed etc etc etc, then see how your attitude to food changes.

 

[Northern Giant UK]

Odd that a lot of people here have no problem with the idea of RM eating witchetty grubs or BG squeezing "water" out of Elephant dung, but have a major queezy fit over some MRM in lard?!?

Personally, I've tried the sausages in question and found them to be ok but a little dry.

I for one have eaten a lot worse.


Kev.

 

[British Red]

For those who wont eat MRM, trying being out of work for 6 months, trying to pay a mortgage, keep the kids clothed, shoed, fed etc etc etc, then see how your attitude to food changes.

I have

It didn't

 

[robin wood]

Odd that a lot of people here have no problem with the idea of RM eating witchetty grubs or BG squeezing "water" out of Elephant dung, but have a major queezy fit over some MRM in lard?!?

Personally, I've tried the sausages in question and found them to be ok but a little dry.

I for one have eaten a lot worse.


Kev.

Some interesting points raised here.

I am not trying to ram my views down anyone's throat and have no problem with anyone else thinking this issue over and coming to a different position but for anyone interested in why someone would choose not to buy cheap filling food this is my position.

I make the choices I do not because of taste or some nostalgic vision of the past. I do it because I care about how the countryside is managed and having lived and worked in the farmed countryside all my life I know the issues.

To me eating MRM from factory farmed meat is as distasteful as wildcamping in the woods and leaving firesites, beercans and litter strewn everywhere or flytipping in lay byes. When you buy that tin you don't see the damage done but if you could trace it back to where it was produced I assure you the damage is there. I think this is why so many here have strong feelings on the subject, cheap meat has a very unpleasant effect on the environment. The cost argument is simply a non started. I have been very poor at times. I worked for the National Trust for years whilst on £7K a year with £10K negative equity, it didn't change my moral position or my buying habits.

"If your home has something other than a dirt floor, you are in the top half of the worlds population.
If your home has a roof, a door, windows and more than 1 room, you are in the top 20%.
if you have refrigeration you are in the top 5%
If you have a car, a microwave, a video and a computer you are in the top 1%"

One problem is we have learned to look to our immediate neighbors and covet what they have. We look to the 5% of the world who are better off and feel hard done to instead of the 95% and feel grateful for what we have. Eating meat 7 times a week has become part of aspirational culture, if you don't have meat on the table you feel cheated somehow, some folk feel the same with SKY or TV or a foreign holiday so if you are hard up cheap meat it is. For me if I am hard up I buy a sack of spuds, rice and beans which is far cheaper. It's not a new situation Thoreau in "Walden, or life in the woods" used to wonder why the Irish navies would endure such incredible hardship in order to eat meat once a week when they could relax so much more if they ate beans. Walden was written in 1854.

Money, meat and sky tv do not bring happiness.

 

[Kepis]

I have

It didn't

You must be the exception to the rule then, i know loads of people in the same position as me, and they have ALL changed their attitude to cheap cuts of meat, perhaps if you have some your Silverside or Topside left over from your Sunday lunch you could send me some, cos i simply cannot afford it at the moment

 

[John Fenna]

I will give up (or never had) money and Sky TV.....but I do love my meat!

I prefer to eat organic meat, or at least locally produced meat that I have reason to think was bred with some care for the beasties.
If pushed (or the wife is doing the shopping!) then I eat supermarket meat, but hopefully with the "Tractor" mark to show it is British....

But I also have a weakness for "Bacon Grill", which is where I fail to live up to my principles
Rat Pack meals are just purely convenient and cheap for overnighters and again my principles suffer, this time from laziness
Tinned meats - though not exactly ethically sound are good for easy long term storage without refridgeration.

Cheap cuts of real meat from a real butcher can be tastier than the cheapest of supermarket meat.

I still cannot afford to buy meat for every day, but it is amazing how far you can stretch meat if you try - even if you only get a sniff of stock in the soup - meat makes a meal!

Too many veggies can set off the last remaining symptoms of my IBS as some folks will have noticed at some meets......

 

[mr dazzler]

I was taught to respect food and not waste it, my parents were kids during the last war and my grandparents had to feed them, the impact of that stayed with us somehow. So as well as "ordinary foods" we ate offal, ox heart, lambs heart, liver, kindeys etc. To throw food away was unthinkable. We had a roast chicken maybe once every 3rd Sunday. But we were never hungry and werent obese either. By the 70's that sort of "careful" attitude had given way to the consumerism thing, it was old fashioned and totally uncool to be thrifty and save stuff and reuse it (this was not only natural aspect of daily life, but essential to my grandparents generation to make ends meet-it wasnt a beauracracy-led industry as "recycling" has become in recent years) This increasingly lax attitude affected our view of food consumption as well. Then we got into over consumption, fast obsoleteness, fast food, growth of the "food products" industry etc. But when was the last time we had a famine, or people were faced with real hunger (not talking about some fat arsed greedy kid wanting even more sugar salt and fat) The sort of desperate hunger that causes angry rioting and stampedes if some food does show up, and the weak ones dont get any? Or when a woman would sell her self to get something to feed the kids? We (thankfully) havenet known that for a long time here. The soldiers in the trenches during WW1 ate rats, a tin of lardy sausage would probably have been most welcome. We have had the luxury of being picky and choosy for too long, hence the tedious proliferation of celebrity tV chefs trying desperately to be continually original with there food designing efforts . A continual supply of year round in season "cheap" food has (I believe) made us lower our respect for it, hence why so much is thrown away. I agree with british Red's comment that cheap intensively prodiuced food is about lining the pockets of greedy and lazy people-and that includes the consumer as well as producer! And why its possible to massively over eat and over consume. And the rich folk think they are so sophisticated because they eat "posh" food by a designer chef Theres still a lot of class envy type stuff with "food"

 

[gunslinger]

Not had proper brawn for years , cant stand the stuff they pass off as brawn in the shops now. Proper butchers are getting scarce , i have to travel to Cardiff to get chittlings and bath chaps, i have found one butchers in swansea that still does pigs trotters.

Aaah chittlings. You can also get them up near Taunton, one of my favourites as it was my dads treat when I was a kid and we weren't allowed to touch them.
Forbidden fruits I guess but I love them.

It really is a shame to see these old traditional foods disappear because people have more money to buy posh food.
Even breast of lamb is hard to get now and ask for brains and they look at you like you are retarded.

Still maybe we will all be eating cheaper cuts soon enough.

GS

 

[xylaria]

Aaah chittlings. You can also get them up near Taunton, one of my favourites as it was my dads treat when I was a kid and we weren't allowed to touch them.
Forbidden fruits I guess but I love them.

It really is a shame to see these old traditional foods disappear because people have more money to buy posh food.
Even breast of lamb is hard to get now and ask for brains and they look at you like you are retarded.

Or a zombie. Tescos sell breast of lamb as a budget roasting joint, they aren't the cheapest place to get it. Roasting it doesn't remove the fat very well in my opinion.

I can make a 10 inch pork pie for about £1.50. I know whats in it as well, which is more than I can say for a standard melton mowbury.

 

[bigbear]

Well, my two penn'orth........
We don't buy battery farmed chicken-ever. Cruelty, taste, texture being reasons.
We try to eat organic veg and fruit whenever we can- taste, chemical free.
We eat a little good quality meat rather than a lot of poor quality-health and principle ( I grew up on a farm, I object to factory farming )

Each to his/her own, but I do question the policies of a government ( or series of governments) who pursue cheap food at the cost of public health and animal welfare to the point where we spend less on food ( as a % of income) and enjoy worse health than many of our European neighbours.

Yes, it is a free country and we should all have choice, but being better informed ( education ) and actually having a choice ( i.e. more organic food available in supermarkets)
would be a big improvement.

Bigbear

 

[British Red]

You must be the exception to the rule then, i know loads of people in the same position as me, and they have ALL changed their attitude to cheap cuts of meat, perhaps if you have some your Silverside or Topside left over from your Sunday lunch you could send me some, cos i simply cannot afford it at the moment

My Sunday lunch was roast vegetables (home grown) with Yorkshire pudding (home made) and stuffing (home made).

No meat.

I am happy to eat cheap cuts of meat and do (whether flush or skint) but my comment was addressed more to the MRM element of your original post. Periods of financial hardship don't change my views because I don't rush out to buy the most expensive cuts whatever my circumstances.

By choice I'll eat truly free meat from the farm - pheasant, venison, duck, partridge rabbit etc. I'll eat it all and make stock from the bones.

After that I'll happily buy local meat reared so that its not lived in misery and been pumped full of God knows what. If money is moderately tight I'll eat a cheap cut of properly reared meat rather than an expensive cut of factory farmed stuff

If I can't eat a decently raised animal I'll eat vegetables, bake bread, make our own yoghurt, etc.

I don't actually need that much meat but I'd rather have, for example, a Shepherds pie made from mutton trimmings of a sheep thats lead a decent life than eat factory farmed chicken or crate reared pork.

It costs me no more and I, personally, feel better for it - both emotionally and physically.

I'm not being remotely "preachy" here - poverty is an old friend of mine - as is cold and hunger. I merely respond to the point that its inevitable that I have to eat MRM or intensively farmed meat as aresult of financial hardship. As a personal choice I elect not to - cheaper cuts for sure - but then I like them anyway so that no change for me. But I would far rather eat no meat than some of the stuff available.

All that said I hold no mandate or moral high ground - everyone makes their own choices about all matters and my choices are just that, my choices. They are no better or worse than anyone elses.

Red

 

[DoctorSpoon]

I'm 100% with you on that one Red. We only eat meat that comes from local farms where we know the welfare standards or wild meat. We only eat it occasionally, maybe not as much as once a week. The rest of the time we get our protein from pulses or eggs when the ducks are laying. That way you can live cheaply and eat good meat!
Nicola

 

[Armleywhite]

My Sunday lunch was roast vegetables (home grown) with Yorkshire pudding (home made) and stuffing (home made).

No meat.

I am happy to eat cheap cuts of meat and do (whether flush or skint) but my comment was addressed more to the MRM element of your original post. Periods of financial hardship don't change my views because I don't rush out to buy the most expensive cuts whatever my circumstances.

By choice I'll eat truly free meat from the farm - pheasant, venison, duck, partridge rabbit etc. I'll eat it all and make stock from the bones.

After that I'll happily buy local meat reared so that its not lived in misery and been pumped full of God knows what. If money is moderately tight I'll eat a cheap cut of properly reared meat rather than an expensive cut of factory farmed stuff

If I can't eat a decently raised animal I'll eat vegetables, bake bread, make our own yoghurt, etc.

I don't actually need that much meat but I'd rather have, for example, a Shepherds pie made from mutton trimmings of a sheep thats lead a decent life than eat factory farmed chicken or crate reared pork.

It costs me no more and I, personally, feel better for it - both emotionally and physically.

I'm not being remotely "preachy" here - poverty is an old friend of mine - as is cold and hunger. I merely respond to the point that its inevitable that I have to eat MRM or intensively farmed meat as aresult of financial hardship. As a personal choice I elect not to - cheaper cuts for sure - but then I like them anyway so that no change for me. But I would far rather eat no meat than some of the stuff available.

All that said I hold no mandate or moral high ground - everyone makes their own choices about all matters and my choices are just that, my choices. They are no better or worse than anyone elses.

Red

Very very well said. MY sentiments exactly

 

[Cobweb]

If you are dairy intolerant, sheep's cheese is a good substitute and not too expensive either

 

[sapper1]

I agree with much of whats been said here.I do have a problem with I suppose society in general,how many people actually know where their meat comes from?More to the point ,how many care.
There are kids in my sons school whohave no idea that sausage is meat,or that chicken breast is better than chicken nugget.
How these kids will ever know what MRM is I'll never know.
It really is sad.

 

[DoctorSpoon]

This is how to teach them - my kids about 7 years ago helping prepare dinner ...

My daughter's now vegetarian
Nicola

 

[xylaria]

I went in to B&Ms today. To look at the nutritional values on st andrews oriental bean meal, and the sausages in lard i bought both. They are both 29p.

Sausages in lard
energy 322 kcal
protein 9.1g
carbohydrate 10.7g of which sugars 1.8g
fat 27.0g of which saturates 8.0g
fibre 0.3 g
sodium 800mg
salt 1.9g

oriental bean meal
energy 94kcal
protein 9.4g
carbohydrate 11.2g of which sugars 0,3g
fat 1.3g of which saturates 0.2g
fibre 5.7g
sodium trace
salt trace

OK not surprising, so how many people die of cardiovascular disease in britain? Britain has a very serious problem with health inequality and death rates. North Britain is poorer and your chances of dying an early death due to diet related disease are higher than in the wealthier south. Basically food like this kills the poor and it doesn't need to. Sausages in lard isn't joke. To me this is a far more serious issue than intensive farming. I would like to choose meat on ethics but in urban areas this often sold at a premium, and like quite a few I will choose meat on economics. My feline obligate carnivore would be too expensive to feed otherwise, but then even worse goes into cat food. I try to feed all members of my household food that isn't going to make them ill in the long term. That does involve some intensivly reared chicken, but not food with lethal levels of saturated fat and salt.

The question is now what do I do with the tin of sausages? Cook them up as a gastronaut challenge or use them as fuel on my WVO stove?