Monday 17 November 2008

One man's meat . . .

We broke one of our golden rules last week: we bought meat from a supermarket. It was actually no more than a Cumberland sausage, so maybe that doesn't count as meat. Sheila wanted to recreate a dish she had eaten while we were on holiday in the Lake District a couple of months ago - a deep Yorkshire pudding filled with Cumberland sausage and onion gravy. The gravy was superb, but then it should have been as the onions were from our garden. Sheila swears they have more flavour than those she can buy at a supermarket.

Our meat is bought at one of two local butchers. We are lucky that there are still a few local shops such as these as most of them have disappeared, unable to compete with the supermarkets. One of the butcher's shops only opened fairly recently, say a couple of years ago. It was opened by a local farmer to sell meat from his farm and, I think, three or four other nearby farms. The meat is excellent, even when they have had to buy it in from elsewhere. They fully deserve to do well and we will continue to give them our custom.

The other butcher makes some of the best sausages I have ever eaten. No, not some of the best - the very best. His Lincolnshire sausages really are superb. He has from time to time tried a new recipe, such as pork and Stilton, and has asked us to give him our opinion, to which he has listened and acted on. His shop is another we shall continue to support.

The leg of lamb we ate yesterday came from our third butcher - my cousin's husband.

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