veal and butchery

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Written by Ben
Wednesday, 03 February 2010 19:13

last saturday i travelled to london, at a rather unearthly hour, to enjoy my christmas present kindly given to me by the lovely emma.  the present, a three hour butchery masterclass course with andrew sharp in the banana republic restaurant adjacent to borough market.  everyone i told about this thought it was a fantastic idea, and i can honestly say, it was!

as andrew explained, three hours is no where near long enough to explain the intricacies of cattle production, butchery and meat selection, and he was right.  the course began with a quick fire introduction to different types of cattle, which tend to fall into two categories, dairy and beef, although you can breed cows that fall into both. which was where it got very confusing.  two categories, dairy and beef, stick with that as a starter for ten; unless of course you intend to become a cattle farmer, in which case i would suggest you look up andrew on facebook and pick his incredibly knowledgeable brain to pieces.

after the intro we touched on the sticky, but rather tasty, subject of veal.  most of us, myself included, can remember the images of veal calves crammed into steel cages with barely enough to breathe and quota of straw placed infront of them until they were fat enough for market. unfortunately, this is still how some people still see veal production today and is one of the reasons why they chose not to enjoy this wonderful meat.  two things; a, this doesn't happen in this country and two, if you drink milk, and by milk i mean the proper stuff not the soya equivalent, you should be aware that one of the by-products of milk production is veal.

to produce milk the heffer needs to first get pregnant, 50% of the baby cows will be male.  now, even with a rudimentary understanding of biology, most of you will realise that a male dairy cow is next to useless in terms of milk production.  so there you are with a herd of 200 female cows each with its own little baby, half of which can't be used to further your business which is already being squeezed of almost all its profit by supermarkets and our desire to pay as little as possible for the things we want.  so what to do?

however, and here’s the rub,  to farm veal the farmer will need to commit to a level of expenditure that again will yield very little profit. one big cost is the slaughtering of the animals that is generally priced per head rather than weight, so it costs our farmers the same to slaughter a calf as it does a fully grown beef cow. the alternative? the farmer is left with a number of male calves that still require slaughtering and disposal, which again will have to be paid for but now the meat is almost worthless and has little potential for income.

at a time where the reduction of waste is a priority for all business and households, the slaughtering of male calfs within three days of their birth is neither a practical nor humane solution.  admittedly the farmer has to pay to raise the calfs to weight ready for eating, but surely a short fun filled life with your cousins and mother is better than no life at all?  and remember spring lambs are only ever between eight and sixteen weeks old.

this actually started life as a post about andrew sharp and his wonderful butchery masterclass, but seems to have transgressed into a brief synopsis of veal production. it doesn’t even given any particularly strong reasons for eating or not eating veal, one way or another. my point, with regard to veal, is that we all need to understand the impact of our decisions when it comes to what we eat and drink. buying british products, and there is a whole other story about labelling, helps support our farmers and the ethical, humane production of beef. i.e not cramming calves into crates and force feeding them until they are ready for slaughter.

incidentally i understand there are further arguments for and against the production of cattle for meat, and how much we can afford and are prepared to pay for the products we buy, but there is not enough space here to write them all down and to do so would require a great deal of research on my behalf. i support the farming and eating of veal because to simply send them to slaughter seems like a complete waste, both of a life and a potentially delicious product.

even if you don’t eat meat, or intend to try some lovely british veal, be aware that it is an unavoidable by-product of the dairy industry and something has to be done with it.

my advice... try it, you might like it.

 

Comments (12)
  • 2010-02-05 21:44:49 |90.208.38.xxx| rory  - great present

    what a great present idea, just need someone to be as gernerous to me!

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Last Updated ( Friday, 05 February 2010 17:12 )

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