Sausage in lard

[MartinK9]

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.

Ah but Proper ones from Dickinson & Morris Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe in Melton are fantastic

"Our pork pies are made using only the finest fresh, natural British pork. The meat is coarsely chopped and seasoned with a special blend of salt and pepper. We do not add preservatives, flavour enhancers or hydrogenated fats. Encased in a delicious rich pastry, the pies are then traditionally baked without using a supporting tin or hoop, which gives the classic bow-sided shape of an authentic Melton Mowbray Pork Pie. Natural bone stock jelly is added to the pies after baking to enhance the natural pork flavour, and to give a succulent texture when eaten."

No affiliation apart from Living a Mile from the shop

 

[inthewids]

I agree with Robin and Red, if i was given the choice of a rat or some MSM id happily take the rat, atleast i know its real meat, the supermarkets charge way more for worse meat, the local butcher is cheaper and id rather support them. I absolutely hate Tesco's, they have ruined the town i stay in, used to have some great food shops, all gone now thanks to them,

When they opened their new store they were told they were not allowed a fish counter as they would close the fish shop, low and behold 1 month after they opened they get a fish counter, a few months later the fish monger was shut i used to eat McDonald etc until i became a chef and interested in food, The government need to get more involved in food, well actually have you seen most politicians, think they live on ready meals paid for by our taxes :/

 

[John Fenna]

Moderation in all things - including moderation!
I am not talking about our beloved mods here...merely having the odd fat and salt laden blow out is unlikely to cause you real problems so the odd tin of susage in lard is unlikely to kill you..
On an ethical level, a gastronomic level and a health level they are not going to be the ideal food, but as a nostalgic "treat" for the old soldier or as a "quick and easy" fry up once in a blue moon they aint exactly poison.....
Now - pass me the "Bacon Grill" please

 

[mortalmerlin]

Sausages in lard are lovely, almost as good as bacon grill. You would all eat both, and enjoy it, if you were hungry enough.

 

[inthewids]

No thanks, i would rather starve than put connective tissue and gristle in my body, did anyone see Britain's most disgusting foods? Was a great programme, i always have a look at cheapo foods in the shops to see what nasties lurk within, i remember once when i was a kid i was given a chicken pie from Farmfoods at a friends house, it was like pastry with gog food inside!! The chicken was like foam, there is NO need at all to subject us to products like this,

 

[Walks with dogs]

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.

One of the best posts I've read!

 

[inthewids]

I agree with you there Walks with dogs.

 

[Toddy]

It's just a different world.
I'm married thirty years this week.......I know, I know he deserves a medal, you get less for murder, and surprisingly he still likes me
but when I was first married I shopped in the village. The greengrocer delivered an order twice a week, so did the butcher, the co only did so once a week. Milk arrived on the doorstep six days out of seven. The papers and morning rolls were delivered daily. Eggs came from the farmers van on a Friday night along with seasonal offerings like huge great, sweet juicy carrots, fresh cut leeks (*with* their greenery all complete ) icy cold turnips, fresh sprouts and rasps and jam strawberries in Summer. the fish van called on a Tuesday with fresh Pittenweem deliveries.
I booked the painter to come and do all the doors and skirtings, and emulsion all the ceilings over three days just before Easter, every year. I had the central heating serviced at the end of the Summer and the carpets steam cleaned just before Christmas.

This was normal behaviour thirty years ago, people budgeted and organised lives.
Now.........there's a choice of two supermarkets within ten minutes walk of the house. The greengrocer closed, the one in the next village is three times the price of the supermarket, the butchers are closed, and I look at cling filmed unfamiliar cuts (hey, I'm Scots, I knew what our old cuts were, gigot chops were huge, these wee peely wally chump chop things just aren't the same and what the hell *is* a meatball ) trayed in polystyrene and think sorry G.... but I'm not buying that, it looks dire.
Fruits and Veggies are perfect... and tasteless, no character, no smell, no seasons.

No wonder folks buy ready made, ready cooked, just nuke it in the microwave......life is about instant gratification nowadays, not patience and anticipation. Not about making the most from what you have, or spending the time to source the best or barter with someone who has the wherewithall ( Himself had pheasant for his christmas dinner, 'cos I fixed the zips on the poacher's new waterproof breeks )

My budget won't stretch to organic box schemes, but my friends have gardens too, and there are places to wander and forage................but what if we didn't have time though ? and little kids to care for and no money to spare ? and the kids see the tv adverts Are those funny amorphous meatballs really going to kill them ? Or the bacon grill that my husband for some unexplainable reason loves as an occasional treat with a couple of fried eggs

We are better fed than we have ever been, life is easier than it has ever been, I think it's also more stressful for most than it has ever been.
Somehow I don't think our children's children are going to look at our time with approval for our wastefulness.......but then, that's another axe to grind.

Sausages in lard ? Heaven knows what the calorific potential is, but as easily portable high energy food, why not ?
Unless like me you're a veggie person

atb,
Toddy

 

[John Fenna]

Toddy - it looks like you and I have been married about the same length of time - mine deserves a medal, a pension (oops -she gets that already[10 years older than me!]) and therapy...
It looks like we share more as well!
Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow...we get the bill!
Most "food" substances these days are going to kill us with one or more of heir treatments...and that includes veggies, water and even the air we breathe!
Unless we can guarantee the purity of production of our food we are all doomed...doomed I tell you.




So the odd bit of over processed "food" is a mere bagattelle in the grand scheme of life.
This is from a man who has eaten worms, cockroaches and Bacon Grill....

 

[mortalmerlin]

What has mechanically reclaimed meat got to do with farming methods? MRM is a processing method not a farming method. It has nothing to do with cruelty to animals so get off your high horses.

Getting all the meat possible out of a carcass would surly reduce the number of animals you need to slaughter to obtain the same amount of meat. Better than just taking the best cuts, which is wasteful.

 

[xylaria]

I served up both the beans and sausages. The children were pretty disgusted at the sight of the sausages coming out of the tin. They taste just like the sausages from the chip shop, and are very simerlar to sausage roll meat. If they taste like what soldiers are fed we should consider feeding them better. The beans were pretty tasty when mixed with a sauce, where the sausages are to much of a departure to what i normally eat to be considered pleasant no matter what.

My problem with these types of food is that they are aimed at the very poorest, who live in homes that have no garden to grow veg, without the income to buy organic or outdoored reared. Suggesting these types of household should do this is passing judgement without any understanding. The tin had plenty of sausages in it, and after eating one you sort of felt full (or sick), but if B&Ms or other supermarkets gave consumers the choice of buying cheap cuts of meat I wouldn't have a problem but they don't. To get those cuts i have to cycle 2 miles to a butchers, and they are becoming priced out by tescos.

They might be good camp food if you like that type of thing. We eat far higher calorie food when out and more junk food, but I would find the wieght an issue as it is tinned.

 

[burning]

Now - pass me the "Bacon Grill" please

There's been far to much talk of B.Grills on this board already

 

[inthewids]

MRM is taken from the animals that are treated cruelly, they are kept in small cages, in the dark, fed growth hormones etc that you then consume...I have eaten quite a bit of offal before but MRM is a completely seperate kettle of bits. supermarkets have caused this divide of poor and rich peoples foods, going away from the above but we should start digging up our public parks and plant veg, fruit trees etc, just bought a load of seeds today, my first try at growing, if i had the space and less roaming neighbours cats id get some chickens too.

Good read :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanically_separated_meat

 

[Draven]

I've started replying to this thread half a dozen times now and stopped myself each time, unsure of what exactly it is I want to say... but here goes.

I'm not very picky about meat. I love hot dogs, burgers, meat ball subs, and literally all the beef and chicken we buy is prepackaged. In the case of the chicken, it's sliced and frozen. The beef is vacuum wrapped :bluThinki I'm not very happy with it, but we've been pretty skint for the last 13 years - I've only recently had the money to spend on things that I want, rather than things that we need, so I've really been buying long-overdue bits of kit rather than meat. Occasionally I buy steak for jerky or just to have a steak, and when I do I try to get a decent bit of meat - but still, not great. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to get good meat, but I can't - so to be honest, I don't eat too much meat. Not nearly as much as I'd like - if it were up to me, I'd have a fresh venison steak 5/7 dinners and a nice sirloin for the other two I'd be happy with hunting myself or raising animals for the table, but it's not really feasible for me.

As for sausages and lard - if things got that dire that I'd actually consent to ingesting that, I'd probably already be 400 miles from civilisation with a broken leg and a broken knife. To quote Crocodile Dundee's timeless words:

You can live on it, but it tastes like ****

Atb
Pete

 

[wicca]

There's been far to much talk of B.Grills on this board already

Be serious rabbit or you'll end up in the pot..

 

[inthewids]

You can live on it, but it tastes like ****

 

[burning]

Admirable, starting to grow your own but one word of caution for the unwary (not nec you).

A lot of the seeds sold these days are designed to be un-reproductive after 1 or 2 years, so you need to buy more. Best bet imho would be to scrounge a few off an auld lad on an allotment, they tend to be the best.
Alternatively you can buy what they call 'heritage seeds' but they arn't cheap.
Don't get me started on monsanto

 

[burning]

Be serious rabbit or you'll end up in the pot..

Be careful, my kung-fu is strong

 

[rik_uk3]

What has mechanically reclaimed meat got to do with farming methods? MRM is a processing method not a farming method. It has nothing to do with cruelty to animals so get off your high horses.

Getting all the meat possible out of a carcass would surly reduce the number of animals you need to slaughter to obtain the same amount of meat. Better than just taking the best cuts, which is wasteful.

I agree with you MM

I posted this thread originally aimed at those of us who remembered old style compo rations and the thread has been hijacked by people to give lectures on good food and how cheap food and MRM will kill us. I've not seen so much crap and moral carbage spouted off in a long time.

My home hobby is cooking, without being big headed I very much doubt there are many better cooks on this site than me, but I would not look down on the food others eat either from liking or financial necessity.

Eating sausages in lard will not be a daily occurrence at home, but yes, I'll take a can camping and the rest are in my TEOTWAWKI stocks. I'm lucky in that I can afford to eat whatever I want without worrying about paying for it, but remember, some others don't have this luxury

As Merlin said, there are some high horses on this forum these days, and I'm outraged at the snobbery shown by some, shame on you

 

[sapper1]

Well said Richard.
You'll have to start a thread on cheese possesed next.