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We hae meat and we can eat…
While the current UK demand for fillets, strip-loins and rib eye of Scotch beef is both commendable and encouraging, as an industry we would do well to follow the French example and make better use of the lesser cuts and offal in our menus. On the hunt once more for new and innovative ways of serving up Scotch meat, Margaret Stewart went along to SIRHA, a chefs' catering fair in Lyon, to find out what the French are up to…
Held every two years at the end of January, SIRHA is aimed at showcasing the fantastic varieties of products European chefs have on their doorstep.
Prime hind-quarter cuts of beef constitute less than 10% of the carcase, and because there are only two filets from any one beef animal, this puts pressure on the supply chain, the price and possibly on the integrity of the meat itself.
The simple solution is to utilise more of the carcase and for caterers to rely less on the quickly cooked, more expensive hindquarter cuts.
The stand immediately beside QMS's was a Triperie, selling only offal of all three species. The staff were slow-cooking samples of heart, kidney, liver, cheek, tongue, tripe, sweetbreads and trotters, and offering them as tasters. The samples were warming and very tasty and, most notably, the raw material for each dish was extremely cheap.
In France, the average per capita consumption of offal is 2kg per annum, compared to the UK figure of a mere 250g (around 2 small portions of haggis!). The French also favour – and pay more for - the highly desirable onglet, bavette and hampe of beef, but the majority of this is just minced in the UK. While I doubt we will ever catch up on French appetites, offal is becoming increasingly fashionable in out-of-home eating, and if more chefs and caterers followed this example it would help ease the pressure on the hindquarter cuts. In Scotland, too, it would allow chefs to return to their roots and serve some of the traditional Scottish dishes that AA Gill, very publicly, was unable to find when recently travelling in Scotland.
The situation here doesn't really make any sense; why follow the crowd and use the same products that everyone else uses? Why not demonstrate individuality, decrease the unit serving cost and increase your potential profit margin? Moreover, if you ensure it is Scotch offal or forequarter, you'll be able to capitalise on the traditional Scotch reputation of full traceability and high animal welfare status – all tangible benefits for which consumers are willing to pay more. In order to do this you will of course have to identify the country of origin on the menu but this increasingly applies to many products anyway. Consumers want to know more about the food they eat, and the meat element, unless you are a vegetarian, is a major part of eating out.
In France it is mandatory to indicate the country of origin of beef in catering establishments, and they also identify many other products on menus. All the produce we ate while we were there was (a) generally more expensive and (b) identified by region on the menu - and it all seemed to taste better and more authentic because of it.
So, next time you place an order with your supplier, ask for the less popular cuts, along with as much background information as possible. This, combined with the careful hand of a skilled chef, will make cooking and serving your dishes that little bit different.
Margaret Stewart
Quality Meat Scotland
This article has been edited from its original version. For the complete feature please see Catering in Scotland magazine February/March 2007.
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