Many younger consumers can only tell what part of what animal they are purchasing by the package label detailing both creature and cut.
That ever-growing ignorance around food we eat is a consequence of a decades-old trade-off when generations of knowledge around food, its provenance, sourcing, and cooking, was exchanged for the convenience of shopping in then-emerging supermarkets.
Back when larger families were the norm and dishwashers and tumble dryers were still future shock stuff of BBC TV show Tomorrow’s World, it was a blameless choice for the woman of the house, the concept of ‘house husbands’ too outlandish for even Tomorrow’s World to contemplate.
(By all accounts, current ‘prototypes’ are still relatively scarce and often pretty ‘glitchy’.)
I’m a firm believer in eating less meat but always ensuring it is premium Irish meat and the independent craft butcher is unsurpassable when it comes to sourcing the very finest.
But they are struggling, echoing the fate of the independent fruit and veg grocers.
In 1990, there were roughly 2,300 independent butchers’ shops in Ireland. Today there are less than 550.
Whereas an independent craft butcher needs to be making a profit of at least 35% to cover costs, supermarkets are often happy with 2-3% profit or even to use meat as a loss leader to draw in customers.
As ever, I’ll never spoil your brekkie with a ‘bad news’ story unless there is some chink of light to cast a more positive glow and Munster Technological University’s highly intriguing new BA in Sustainable Butchery and Gastronomy has the potential to do just that.
What began as an inspired notion from butcher Pat Whelan has evolved into a two-year degree course commencing next January, joining the dots between culinary arts, agriculture, and business, with meat as the common thread.
The comprehensive course appears especially suited to butchers seeking to develop skills in leadership and innovation (including new product development) but it is also open to others working in the meat sector.
The course examines how meat is produced, butchered, cooked, and eaten around the world, digging down deep into breeds (10 or 15 years ago, we ate ‘beef’; increasingly we seek out Angus, Hereford, Dexter, and, so on) and the impact of various gastronomical approaches.
It covers agricultural production and the ‘science’ of beef, including anatomy, nutrition, and factors that affect taste, texture, and overall quality; there is even a ‘beef sommelier’ module, the result of a link with Buenos Aires University, in Argentina, Ireland’s main rival as a premium beef producer.
I appreciate most readers won’t skip from savouring a breakfast sausage to suddenly signing up but you can still elevate standards on your own plate, and celebrate world-class Irish beef and lamb as a premium foodstuff of extraordinary quality.
Say sayonara to supermarket meat-shopping and seek out an Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland member to act as your guide.
Buy good meat cookbooks, starting with Irish classics, Pat Whelan’s The Irish Beef Book, and And For Mains, by Gaz Smith and Rick Higgins, and best of all, The Book of St John, by Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver, from the globally renowned London restaurant that brought nose-to-tail meat cooking to the fine dining table, showing how cheap cuts can be priceless on the plate and that offal means the very opposite of awful.
Sandwich guru Barry Enderwick (instagram.com/sandwichesofhistory/) dives into his Sandwiches of History: The Cookbook with a live Dublin show (July 18) featuring special guest stars, live sandwich making and tasting with audience-suggested ad-ons, audience Q&A, trivia games and more.
ticketmaster.ie
When it comes to cooking with fresh Irish produce, few culinary courses can surpass those at Lettercollum House, in West Cork, one of Ireland’s great market gardens and where Karen Austin with her summer series of classes covering Lebanese, Spanish, Mediterranean and South East Asian cuisines.
lettercollum.ie
Today (June 21) being World Martini Day, I’d advise a trip this week to No 27 Bar at Dublin’s Shelbourne to sample their four flights of ice-cold hand-batched martinis available until June 27, because a good martini fixes everything!
theshelbourne.com
TODAY’S SPECIAL
Always open to reducing sugar intake, I approached Mór Taste compote-like preserves with interest, as they shun the traditional 50-50 fruit to sugar ratio of traditional jams for a 70% reduction in sugar, and incorporating 85% fruit.
Raspberry was a challenge for one raised on the traditional sweeter version since childhood until I paired it with natural yogurt and grilled peach but it was Cherry that really knocked my socks off, the reduction in sugar emphasising the tart, almond-adjacent flavours and if I then tried it with crème fraîcheon sweet toasted brioche … well, that’s just the way this Sugar Daddy rolls!
RRP €3.70, mortaste.ie