The Christmas Eve meat auction at Smithfield

To Smithfield on the morning of Christmas Eve, to pick up a bargain or three at the annual meat auction. This event, which takes place annually at London’s famous meat market, is one of the London Christmas traditions that I wrote about for Londonist recently, but not something Allison and I had ever gone and seen for ourselves. Clearly, this was something that needed to be rectified. After getting off the train at Farringdon, we saw a few people with shopping carts making their way towards the north-western corner of the market building, close to the junction of Charterhouse Street and Farringdon Street; they, and we, congregated by Harts of Smithfield, the butcher’s that does the auction and which has a sign (there all year, apparently) proclaiming their shop-front to be the location of “the one and only” Christmas Eve auction, starting at 10:30am. The crowd was spilling out onto the road, which was closed off by the City of London Police shortly before the fun started. Punters, be they people who come here every year or first-timers, were excited at what lay ahead.

As the appointed hour approached, the crowd had swelled to several hundred and three catwalks extending out into the crowd were constructed of wooden pallets; it was from these that the meat would be sold. Not long after 10:30, the main butcher – the man who conducts this sale every year – made his way onto the central catwalk and announced how the auction would work. This was all about making sure that “everyone gets something” and unlike at a regular auction there wouldn’t be any bidding – here, there was a fixed price for each cut of meat and anyone wishing to have one of these would have to hold up the appropriate amount of cash (change, we were told, would not be given).

First up were some legs of pork – English legs of pork, complete with trotters on the end – going for £20 each. A forest of £20 notes appeared above the crowd as punters vied to get the attention of the butchers who were holding up the legs along all three catwalks. A brisk trade was done, with a few dozen legs being sold. “What are we going to do with this?”, I heard a woman ask a man, presumably her husband, who’d just bought one. “You’ll need to buy a bigger oven,” quipped another man standing next to them. More hands holding banknotes went up for the next bargain, topsides of beef; “fifty quid anywhere else, twenty here,” proclaimed the master of ceremonies. English loins of pork were next, each one at least three feet long (how many chops could you get from that?) and costing £10 each. “We could probably make room in the freezer for that,” said someone who did not sound at all convinced that they could. Be that as it may, for bargain pieces of meat, Smithfield on Christmas Eve is clearly the place to go. Many seemed very happy with what they got!

A few professional-looking photographers were in attendance, looking for money-shots such as a little girl sitting on her father’s shoulders, holding up a £10 note (the nearest butcher spotted her too, and made sure she got something). It was even claimed that a TV crew (from Brazil, of all places) was in attendance. Large pieces of belly pork (£10 each) were followed by the turkeys, which went for £20 – or at least they did once one of the assistant butchers, an evidently put-upon chap called Charlie, was able to get them out of the boxes (although not before his colleagues had got the audience to chant the man’s name several times). Shoulders of pork, sold in bags of two for £20 followed, then big sides of green gammon for £20 (‘green’ in a butchering context meaning a piece of bacon or gammon that’s been neither cooked nor smoked) and boxes of ducks, four for £20. The punters were still very keen to buy, and much money changed hands in a sort-of feeding frenzy. “This is fabulous,” said the chief butcher. “Great to see so many people spending money. It’s ’cos of Brexit, of course.”

Ribs of beef were brought out to cheers from the crowd, for this was probably what many had been waiting for (all that was needed was for someone to strike up a chorus of ‘The Roast Beef of Old England’); they were quickly snapped up by eager buyers, along with more shoulders of pork and whole suckling-pigs which buyers carried away on their shoulders which must have made for some curious glances on the Tube ride home. As reinforcements arrived – dozens of boxes containing more beef ribs, brought along on a fork-lift and then hurriedly unpacked by the assistant butchers – the coin-toss ritual began. This is a simple game which is very much a part of the ritual at the meat auction – call the coin-toss wrong, and the punter has to pay the asking-price. Call it right, and the meat is his (or hers) for free. Given that the asking-price is in any case a bargain, it’s a win-win situation.

By this point, the auction was coming to an end. People – some of whom had come with backpacks or shopping-carts (or had parked nearby, for it was a Saturday and parking is free in the vicinity at weekends) were started to leave, fully-laden with enough meat to feed their families for some time.

As the sale died down and the clearing-up operation began, some punters remained – those who’d picked up on an aside earlier, to the point that if anyone wanted their meat cut up on the spot it could be done at the end (having been to Smithfield of an early morning before, we were well aware that a Smithfield butcher will only cut up a piece of meat for you after he’s sold it to you – this is, after all, a wholesale market). We came away with a beef rib, a pork shoulder and a topside of beef – all of which had, of course, to be carried home on the train.

A London Christmas tradition experienced, and great fun it was too!

Meatopia

“The problem with vegetarians is that they’re eating my food’s food.” Christian Stevenson, a.k.a. ‘DJ BBQ’, as quoted at Meatopia, London, 7^th September 2013

Yesterday, we went to the Docklands – Tobacco Dock down Shadwell way to be precise – for Meatopia, which promised to be a carnivorous experience to remember. Meatopia, which as the name suggests is a foodie festival concerning all things meat-related – has been going for nine years in the USA (it was founded by the food writer Joshua Ozersky) but this was the first time it had come to London. I expected good things. Many good things.

On entering, we were greeted by a lot of smoke. The old warehouses of Tobacco Dock are partly covered, and with a couple-of-dozen barbecues on the go (one of Meatopia’s principal guarantees is that all of the meat served is cooked with wood or hardwood charcoal, no butane, propane etc allowed), the atmosphere was smoky to say the least. I got the distinct impression that the organisers hadn’t thought everything through – but it could’ve been worse, I’ve been to foodie events in parks that have been wash-outs thanks to the weather, and at least we were on solid ground here.

Glimpses of foodie heroes could be seen; Fergus Henderson was there, and Daniel Young (no relation) of Burger Monday fame was on the stage for an early Q&A session, while Jay Rayner seemed to have adopted an almost-furtive pose in a flat cap. My sometime butchery tutor Nathan Mills was on hand too, helping out on the main stand (a.k.a. ‘The Cutting Room’).

We started with a coffee; not just any coffee but a blend of Ethiopian, Brazilian and Kenyan coffee courtesy of Climpson Estates. Now I used to be the kind of philistine who would deliberately ask for Nescafe when I went into a branch of Starbucks or Costa Coffee, but in recent years I have come to appreciate good coffee and I am particularly fond of Ethiopian coffee, probably a direct result of having travelled in that country. My yardstick nowadays is that if it’s good enough, you don’t need to add milk and this blend passed that test with flying colours.

Following that, we split up to sample what we wanted to sample of the various barbecue stands that were giving off that tantalising smoky smell.

Tayyabs, the legendary Pakistani curry-house in Whitechapel, was doing their Chargrilled Lamb Chops (“marinated overnight using a 40 year old secret recipe”), which I passed on the grounds that I last dined there, and had the lamb chops among other things, less than a month ago and I was looking for something different at Meatopia.

Which was why I made a beeline for the St John barbecue, and not just because they did not appear to have much of a queue (although God only knows why). St John being St John, they’d gone for an offal offering of Ox Heart Bun. I wanted to start my culinary experience of Meatopia by having something I would not normally eat, and ox heart definitely falls into this category. The heart, so the man on the stall told me, had been marinated for 36 hours in a garlic and balsamic mixture before being grilled, and then allowed to stand in its own juices. I’m not much of a balsamic fan, but the meat stood out against all the flavour to create a wonderful eating experience.

Next up was the Wild Game Company. Now I happened to be walking past this stall when Andy, the kilt-clad head honcho of this most Scottish of meat ventures, came over and said hello to my dad. They knew each other from Broadway Market in Hackney, where until recently Dad sold the finest Cheshire cheese a couple of stalls along from the Wild Game people. When Allison and I stood in for Dad on the stall, we did spend some of our takings on their venison! Andy’s people were offering Venison Steak Frites with a spicy mayonnaise, and venison as part of steak-frites was a new one on me, so I went for it. It was lovely – my only critique is that I’d’ve liked more venison!

My next objective was to get a drink. Beer was courtesy of the Meantime Brewing Company, the Greenwich-based microbrewery who do a great Pale Ale, and their lager’s not so bad either (I say this as a dedicated real ale drinker).

The highlight of the day was without a shadow of a doubt the butchery demonstration by Dario Cecchini, the legendary butcher of Panzano whose restaurants Allison and I have visited on more than one occasion. To Dario, butchery is not a job but a way of life, and via his wife (who’s American; she did the translating), he espoused his philosophy on life – as he put it, “a story of hunger, intelligence and know-how” in which the butcher, who is the “most delicate link in the chain of food”, is at the centre of the community he serves. This was impressive enough, but this man did this while butchering a pig half-carcass and giving out information on what to do with the trotters (in Tuscany one can apparently be used to feed ten people) and the head (head cheese, a.k.a. brawn). With Dario as with Fergus Henderson, whom he hailed as a culinary hero, nothing is wasted.

The centrepiece of Dario’s demonstration was the porchetta, the central cut of the pig that starts four ribs down from the head. After deboning it with ease, this was rubbed with salt (not just any old salt but his own finely-ground herb-infused salt), fennel pollen (which represents summer, thus making this dish a combination of the seasons given that in Tuscany pork is representative of winter because that’s when the pigs are usually butchered) and rosemary (a symbol of “peace, and the love of good food”). It’s then rolled and roasted.

Apparently, porchetta thus cooked was served up to a summit between Orthodox and Catholic religious bigwigs in Florence in the early fifteenth century, and on tasting it one of the Orthodox delegation declared it to be ‘aristos’, which in Greek means ‘the best’. According to Dario, although this did not manage to resolve the Great Schism, it did lead to six years of peace between the two rival factions of Christianity! To this day, this dish is still called arista alla Fiorentina in Tuscany in honour of this feast.

While he’d been doing this, a ready-prepared porchetta joint had been roasting away, and this was cut up for us punters. Allison managed to get hold of some, and it was lovely, the herb combination combining very well with the pork.

The only problem was with the suggested wine pairing with this amazing dish. One of the sponsors was Casillero del Diablo, and although I have nothing against South American wines (they're lovely, honest!) I did think that saying that arista alla Fiorentina is best paired with a wine that happens to have their label on the bottle was a bit of a cop-out. Personally, I can think of nothing other than Chianti as the perfect accompaniment to anything Dario Cecchini serves up. But hey, that’s just my opinion.

Dario was followed on the main stage by another cookery demo, this time concerning beef that had been cured using salt from the Himalayas. My one-time tutor was on hand to cut the T-bone joints for the barbecue, courtesy of another of Meatopia’s sponsors (and who else but a barbecue company would you expect to sponsor this meat-fest?). 

The resulting meat was truly one of the best examples of barbecued steak I’ve ever tasted, although I could only get a couple of pieces from when they handed out samples to the crowd.

By late afternoon, some of the stalls were running low or running out of their food, causing long queues at the stalls that were left as punters were still hungry and keen to offload their ‘meatbucks’ tickets. Some people, and I’d not care to name names, evidently had not planned for the number of people who did show up. A lesson for future events here, I think. To their credit, Shake Shack had a plan B which consitsted of pork sausage to replace the sold-out pork belly, topped with an American cheese sauce and chopped cherry peppers. Now that is a topping I’d like to replicate.

But the biggest queue of them all was for Almost Famous’s Run BMC Burger, “a chuck, marrow and brisket patty with BBQ salt n pepper pretzel beef rib, pork cracking, crumbled beef monster munch [yes, really], peppercorn mustard cream mayo and a tangy beef stock beer BBQ jus dip”. 

We queued, and queued. And stayed in the queue. We saw them send someone to stand at the back of the queue to stop anyone else from joining it. One of us went to get more drinks, which led to a longer trip than expected as some of the bars had apparently ran out of drinks! We saw the smoke from the barbecue.

We sent one of our party to the front to ascertain that there were still enough burgers left (there were). Allison contacted Daniel Young on Twitter to check if the burger was worth the wait. We befriended the people next to us in the line, who shared the bounty of their goodie-bags (including a very quaffable Chilean merlot).

Then, after two minutes short of two hours, we made it to the front and were rewarded with our burgers. Anticipation, already running at record levels, was heightened by our bearing witness to the preparation line. We’d certainly earned them!

The burgers were, by the way, delicious. London does have a bit of a gourmet burger scene going on at the moment, and these were up there with the best.

After savouring our burgers, we took in the post-prandial atmosphere – the smell of the barbecue pervading throughout, and the ska band on stage adding to an end-of-the-party atmosphere – before heading off into the London night.

All in all, this was an event to be remembered and I’m very glad we went. Although there were a few teething troubles that are no doubt due to this being Meatopia’s first event in this country, I fully expect that Meatopia will return, and that these little problems will have been sorted out when it does so.

Butchering in Bermondsey

At a quarter to one on a cold Sunday lunchtime, I find myself underneath a railway arch in south-east London.

My reason for being there? Butchery. Specifically, The Butchery Ltd, a butcher’s located in the Spa Terminus, an off-shoot of Maltby Street Market and where most of Maltby Street’s original traders are to be located. The Butchery’s customers have included the better-known Ginger Pig and famous chefs such as Raymond Blanc. Specialising in free-range meat from small British farms, it doesn’t just sell meat, however; it offers butchery classes in which people who are interested in where their food comes from can get hands-on with meat and learn about the right way to cut it up.

The class I’m here for is called ‘Praise the Pork, Punish the Pork’ so the meat in question is going to be that of the pig. Specifically, a saddleback pig farmed by a Mr Trumper. We know this because of the label that the abattoir has attached to the carcass which tells us the provenance of the animal (it also tells us when the animal was slaughtered, how much it weighed immediately prior to slaughter and the thickness of the fat – all of which have a bearing on the price). The label, Nathan tells us, ensures that discerning customers who want to know where the animal came from – and Nathan has a lot of customers like that – can find out.

Nathan is our butcher-tutor, an Australian with over twenty years experience in the butchery trade. Today, he’s got a class of five thirty-something blokes (two Irishmen, two Englishmen and another Aussie) who are all keen to get stuck in. I’m happy with the class number – any more, and there’s no way that one butcher could keep an eye on all of us, and the chances of much practical work would be greatly reduced. As things are, this is going to be one very hands-on experience.

First of all, the basics: We kit ourselves out in white butchers’ coats and navy-and-white striped aprons, and clad our non-cutting-hands in grey gloves that will protect them from the blades. Following this, Nathan talks us through the tools of the trade. There are four of these – the saw, the chopper, the steak knife (not the sort of steak knife you use for eating steak, but a foot-long curved blade) and the boning-knife. The latter, Nathan advises, will be the one we’ll be using most – once he’s shown us the basic ways of gripping it. There’s the pointer, in which you hold the knife as though you are using it to point at something, and the ‘murderer grip’.

Then it’s to the cold storage to get the meat. Hanging there are a variety of carcasses – Nathan also has plenty of beef and lamb – and these are all halved animals, which is how he gets them from the abattoir. In terms of the pigs at least, the guts and offal have been removed although the kidneys are still in place (the first thing we do with our carcasses is cut these off). My first hands-on encounter with the pig is carrying one of these half-carcasses to the table. It’s a heavy beast.

The five of us are split into pairs – and, as the odd one out, I found myself partnered with Nathan. Given that he is for the most part using another half-pig as a demonstration, I find myself doing almost all of the cutting, unlike the others who have to take it in turns (on more than one occasion, I’m told by one of the others that I’ve lucked out).

First off, the half-carcasses are split into three – the shoulder, the ribs/belly area and the hindquarters. The steak knife is used for most of this, with the saw being reserved only for cutting through bone.

The first of the three parts that we tackle is the shoulder. I later learn, courtesy of Hugh Flippin’-what’s-his-name’s River Cottage Meat Book, that this can be a massive on-the-bone roasting joint that would feed twenty-odd people. This, though, is not a regular joint and it wouldn’t be much fun for us if it was as we wouldn’t have much butchering to do! We need to take the bones out, turn part of this into a deboned shoulder joint for roasting and use the rest of the meat for sausages. There’s a large plastic tub into which the meat and fat for sausages is going, and it’s starting to fill up nicely. The sausage-making will come later.

The deboning is actually rather fun. Sliding the boning-knife through the meat, I hit bone and run the blade along said bone. Once completed, the finished cuts are put to one side on a counter that is soon filling up nicely with some mouth-watering cuts.

The deboning fun continues with the leg joint. The trotter and hock are separated – the former can be used for stock or gelatine, while I am sure Allison will be delighted with the latter as it can be used for brawn. The fun part of separating the hock from the rest of the leg comes with the ball-and-socket joint, which is prised apart with the sharp end of the boning-knife.

The next part involves separating one of the muscles of the rump which is sliced into pork steaks. Separating the muscle is a delicate job that gives the lie to the notion of ‘butchering’ being associated with just hacking away at something. The rest of the leg is partially butterflied and will be rolled later to make another roasting joint.

Next up is the mid-section, to which the saw is taken in a length-ways cut to separate ribs from belly. There’s only one thing that the rack of pork is going to become, and that’s chops. The trick here is to do most of the cutting with the steak knife, down between the ribs, with only the final part being done with the chopper. To be honest, I’m feeling a little nervous with the chopper and my first go is somewhat awry. Nathan tells us that we can use the saw if we like, but there are no takers for this. We all want to have a go with the chopper, and it isn’t long before the tray fills with plenty of thick pork chops.

With the belly part, we have a choice: These can become a pork belly roast (complete with crackling, of course) or bacon. With the prospect of already taking home shoulder and leg roasting joints, most of us chose bacon. Our pork bellies are thus coated in a cocktail of salt and mixed herbs before being vacuum-sealed. This will need to cure for a week, then be taken out of the bag and kept in the fridge for another week before we need to take it to a butcher’s for them to slice it – although not a kosher butcher or a halal butcher. Obviously.

It’s time for a break, and as there is to be no more knife-work a bottle of red wine is opened.

Post-break, our first task is to roll the roasting-joints, which involves learning how to properly use string to tie a butcher’s knot. My knot-work is a little rusty – I was good at this in the Scouts but that was a long time ago – and it takes me couple of goes to get it right. There’s a difference between the two joints, and that is that the shoulder is the slower roast, and when rolled it can only be distinguished from the leg by its darker colour.

Finally there are twelve kilos of meat and fat off-cuts in the sausage-tub. To this is added salt, pepper, water, thyme, sage and rosemary – the measurements for these are all in proportion to the amount of meat – and then it’s someone’s turn to mix it all up with his bare hands. And yes, that ‘someone’ is me. Then it’s to the mincer, which is kept in the cold room as the process can (slightly) warm the meat. Which is minced three times before it’s loaded into the sausage machine – a contraption with a nozzle at the top which squirts out the meat into the sausage skins (assuming they’ve been properly applied to the end of the nozzle). We all take it in turns to have a go – it’s not as simple as it looks by any means. However, it is not long before a lot of sausages are hanging in the cold room.

After this, it’s time for dinner. Rather surprisingly, it’s a beef stew that has been quietly simmering away while we’ve been busy butchering. Butchering, it turns out, gives you a healthy appetite.

Driving back to East Finchley after a long but highly enjoyable afternoon, my car is laden with over ten kilos of pork – two roasting joints (one shoulder, one leg), some sausage-meat to go in the Christmas stuffing, a vacuum-packed slab of bacon (to be sliced in a fortnight’s time), eight chops, plenty of sausages, four steaks, three trotters, two hocks, and a kidney.

 Now that, my friends, was a foodie adventure to remember!