It always amazes me how quickly this time of year comes round, and preparations have to be started for the big day. The Christmas poultry is all ordered ready, the beef is hanging and the bacon and hams are curing, so I’m feeling quite organised this year, but despite our preparations I still have the feeling that I have forgotten something!

Christmas for us is a very busy time of year and it is very nerve racking making sure everything is prepared and ready. Three weeks ago I went out to John Laughton’s farm at North Cockerington to look at the cattle he had been rearing for us ready for Christmas, and some fine beasts they were to! Along with some prime Longhorns from Dads that’s the beef all sorted!

So then it was onto the pork, and with some lovely Gloucester Old Spots from Kieth Wright near Woodhall Spa things are looking good. The pork from rare breed pigs really do make the most fabulous sausages.

With that all sorted all I have to do is check how the turkeys are doing, and get the bacon curing underway.

We try to get all the bacon into cure as soon as we can as with dry curing the sooner we get it underway the better it will be. Once the pork has been trimmed it’s ready to be rubbed with the curing salt which has been infusing with juniper berries. Then it is left to cure in large tubs for 10 to 12 days before we hang it up to dry until we need it. In much the same way the gammons are put into cure, the only difference is instead of a dry cure they go into a brine cure, there they will stay for 3 weeks before hanging up to mature.

So with the beef all hanging the bacon curing, and a quick phone call today to see how the turkeys at  Copas  are doing everything seems to be in order! All that remains is for the orders to flowing in and, oh I need to get my tree up!

As I’m sure many of you will agree the positive effects that supermarkets especially Wm Morrison have had on the quality of British Meat with their processing facilities capable of slaughtering and butchering 360 cattle a day, can be written on a postage stamp and this is my primary concern with this scheme.  Many of us have spent years and years refining our production techniques to produce and excellent product, weather that be Lincoln Reds, Longhorns, Shorthorns or any of our other fabulous native breeds.

Now from the outside this new scheme looks like it could be the recognition that everybody has been looking for, this is where I beg to differ. The very nature of the way that companies such as Woodhead Bros is going to be the down fall of it.

The beef from native breeds is some of the best quality beef in the world. But there is no single  key behind it. so much effects it. It’s not as simple as just the fact that it is a native breed, if only it was! It is the combination of many factors, the slow growing of the breed,  many herds are small and well managed, the varied diet of the animal, the fact that they are often taken to the abattoir individually or in small groups by ones own transport, more often than not slaughtered, butchered and retailed by small family companies. All of these things make up the chain of production of an excellent product.

As with the production of beef in general, you encourage large scale production and corners start to get cut and parts of the chain start to get passed by in the name of money.

So as a result of a scheme such as this the keeping of native breeds will be encouraged, a good thing? well in this case no, I don’t think so! What can be the positives to come out of the encouragement to keep large numbers of native breeds, to encourage a quicker finishing time, to process large groups of animals at a time, to treat them as run of the mill beef by hot boning them, no maturation, processing and packing them in mass production and piling them up on supermarket shelves all be it as their named breeds.

The only out come of this that I can see, other than financial is to cheapen the name of our cherished native breeds. Many people have spent years getting the the recognition they now have and that will all be lost by letting them go through a scheme like this.

We all know what springs into our mind when we think of supermarket meat, and the bulk of this is not caused by inferior cattle it is from the processing system they go through. Do we want this for our native breeds, do we want to ruin everything we have worked for!

I can think of nothing worse than someone going into Morrison’s and purchasing a piece of beef labeled as Longhorn and it being like every other piece they have had and thinking if that’s what Longhorn is like then I wont bother next time, because that is what will happen!

This will be the direct result of this and I cant believe how many cattle societies are supporting this, it is not a good thing, it will destroy all the hard work people have put in. It will take away your niches, It will take away your exclusivity!

Now is the time to act, Native Breeds should stand together, and appose this scheme before it does us damage.

The selection of food that Lincolnshire produces is so vast and varied that we must be one of the only counties to have a finger in nearly every pie. We grow fabulous vegetables, wheat for milling, barley for beer, oil seed rape for cooking oil. We make cheese’s, we make wines, we rear exelent beef pork and lamb, we make chocolate, we land fish, to name but a few!

So it is a very well justified win and will hopefully bring the attention that we deserve, we are often a county that is forgotten as we aren’t on the way to anywhere, unless you are going to the north sea! But we have so much to offer. People often think that Lincolnshire is a flat county, but they couldn’t be further form the truth, the Wolds offer stunning scenery of rolling hills, chalk streams and lush green woods, our coastline has beautiful clean sandy beaches and we have lovely quaint little market towns like Louth with is bustling high streets full of independent food shops!

It well worth a trip to Lincolnshire to find out for yourself, we are easy to get to, just turn off the A1 at Newark or catch the train, Lincoln Central now has a direct link to London’s Kings Cross!

To read more about Lincolnshire’s win click here

The idea behind it is that I feel that our trade has been very much done behind closed doors, and I think that this has broken down the links between us and our food and where it comes from. I am very proud of how we do things at the shop and I want to try and re establish the link and show people about the terrific work load that goes into the production process that never gets the recognition it deserves.

So click on the link and have a look at our videos and keep looking for new ones all the time!

Easter is always a busy time for us, many people like to make the most of spending time with family and friends and require something special in the way of meat to feed them all. Lamb is always very popular at Easter and it usually signals the start of the spring lamb season.

Spring lamb is lamb that was born around Christmas and is now just reaching the right size to produce a good carcase. The best way to describe the taste of spring lamb is to say it is the equivalent of veal to beef. It is much paler than hogget lamb and as a rule much leaner, it is also very tender. There isn’t the amount of flavour that hogget has because that increases as the lambs get older. All this comes at a cost though, spring lamb demands a premium and its always a race between farmers to get the first spring lambs ready for market.

Because lamb is so popular this time of year we always try to make a display of it and dress the window with crown roasts, guards of honour, stuffed saddles and all sorts of other eye catching creations!

Beef always proves a popular choice too, and ofter for Easter it takes the form of a fore rib or sirloin joint to impress the family! Last but by no means least chicken is often considered for peoples Easter roast, our Label Anglais chickens never disappoint, they are free range and corn fed and wow do they pack some flavor! They are raised slower than their commercial cousins and because of this their carcases are perfect to boil up after you have enjoyed you roast for stock.

I end on a sad note today, as always we closed on Good Friday this year though I was disappointed to receive complaints at this! It seams so sad that we now live in such a 24/7 society that demands we be open high days and holidays. Next we will be expected to open Christmas Day!

Today when checking my e-mails there in the inbox someone had sent me a clip all about Boston, (the town I was born in) and how the war changed it. I must say it is a fantastic film, it shows some views of the market and rearing livestock for meat. There are a few names in it you may recognize and some firms still in operation today! I do always think that yes we have moved forward in huge leaps and bounds but I cant help but feel that we have lost so much in the process, I know that I may have a different view if I had been there but things do seem much more civilised and people still had respect for one another.

I know when you look at my trade “The Butcher” yes our butchering skills have developed further and we have all sorts of wonderful machinery now but we have also lost so much! Once upon a time it was the norm for the butcher to have dealt with the live animal through to his customers, he was in control of every part,he know provenance of his stock, he very often slaughtered it himself, and he knew all his customers. Now it is the very small minority the can say that even on of these apply, and in the age of food miles and local this local that I cant help but think we need to look back and see what we have lost. My personal feeling is that one of our biggest losses is being able to do ones own slaughtering. When it used to be done in house the butcher was in control, his stock travel very small distance to slaughter, it would b dispatched on arrival and no one was stressed least of all the animal, which is the most important thing. Further more the problems with thing like E-coli for instance were much more containable, now if a slip up happens at the abattoir this may affect 30-40 shops who purchase from them then in turn hundreds and thousands of their customers are potentially exposed. But back in the day if a shop had a slip up with slaughtering the potentially it is only there customers and risk, reducing the magnitudede. I know that in an ideal world there would never be a slip up but things do happen and lets face it “you cant beat doing a job yourself!” At least when you deal with your customers and there complaints, weather that may be tough beef, poor quality meat, or stomach upsets there is no better incentive to do a job right! Believe me they judge you much harsher than any government inspector ever will!!

Sit back watch the film and enjoy it!

Click here to watch the film!!

Hi All,

Since all the Christmas decorations came down the shop window looked a bit bare, but not any more, I have found a whole load of photos of old butchers shops, so I have framed them up and put them in the front of the shop window! There are some really interesting ones and it just shows how things have changed! It has also made an interesting display that I hope people will enjoy before we put out the Spring decorations!!

Hi All,

We have two flying pigs who live outside the shop! They are called Primrose and Ivy, we have had them for just over a year now!

Ever since they arrived they have received post cards from around the world! It all started in 2009 when they received a Christmas card from their “cousins” !  Since then they have had cards from France,  Switzerland, Kenya, Australia, and many more!

All we know is that they come from their “cousins” and that they travel a lot! We always look forward to receiving one and so do the pigs! They are full of fabulous stories and tales of distant relatives!

We hope we never find out who sends them but that they continue to brighten our days!