Tesco Chicken

[di]

'orrible thing is they've always been skinned & beheaded by the time they make their way to me~so who knows maybe my mates bro inlaw is your Mr Mcgregor!!

[Stacey Steve]

Can't remember the last time we bought meat from a supermarket, although we do shop at Tesco.

The beef always looks too red but perhaps that's the special lighting they use. The other meat, well when we did used to buy meat from them, it always shrunk and was therefore very expensive.

We have bought from the butchers every since and as we always buy fresh meat and in bulk, we get it at a very good price, although we do now have two large freezers.

The quality of the meat is excellent and we normally get asked by visitors where we get it. The supermarkets are fine for certain things for us but we think it's still best to build up a rapport with the local butcher.

[Kristen]

"The beef always looks too red but perhaps that's the special lighting they use"

nah, its because it hasn't been hung for long enough, and won't therefore have as good a flavour.

Similarly most joints are too lean, and won't cook as well. You can cut the fat off after cooking, but if it isn't there in the first place you'll get a dry old joint.

Where we lived before we had a pig farmer nearby. He sold the pork that the supermarkets rejected [as having too thick an outer fat layer]. Tasted fantastic. Any anyway, how do you get crackling with 1mm of fat??

Supermarkets are for loo rolls, bottles and cans of things.

[Mikey]

No, No Kristen supermarkets are for cookery books, barbeque equipment, clothing, tv's, music, games and puzzles for the kids, cards and flowers.

Who on earth goes there for food these days!!

[Winged one]

We are in the process of getting a new fridge with a larger freezer. And if we stay in this country, I am hoping ot get an extra freezer for the shed by next winter too (currently looking at going to the continent, and thus having to give up the plot - boo hoo - but OH already reckons I will have pots on an apartment balcony somewhere!!).

Sorry, I digress. There are a couple of decent butchers near us, and I also (coming from the country) have access to some very good producers when we are away from home. But can rarely bring much back with us due to storage space (or lack of it). But once I have the freezer space, I will be back to buying bacon and ham pieces and dark turkey meat from a butcher in Cork city (I lived on these while in college), and large hunks of cow, sheep and pig from others local to our folks (and hopefully lots of stewing cuts too so that I can make long slow cooked stews while at work).

But the price of meat has gone ridiculous here (and the farmers are constantly giving out about having no money!), and the quality is getting worse by the month. All you can get in the supermarkets are chops, steaks, roasting joints and mince - there are no nice cuts for stewing, rarely you'll find some spare ribs, or lamb shanks, or liver, but they are rare, and the taste is getting so bland that they are all starting to taste the same.

I want old fashioned meat that tastes different (like it used to).

[Kristen]

"No, No Kristen supermarkets are for cookery books, barbeque equipment ..."

Blimey, where do you get your loo rolls from?

"I am hoping ot get an extra freezer for the shed by next winter too"

Suggest you check that the refrigerant isn't optimised for room temperature - I believe that many now are tuned to an evaporation / condensation cycle based on indoor temperatures, and thus may not be very efficient in a cooler setting - daft as that may seem!

"But the price of meat has gone ridiculous here (and the farmers are constantly giving out about having no money!)"

Price going up doesn't always mean that the farmers are getting the difference ... thieving supermarkets and middle men took it back in the last pig price crisis (around 2000 I think), and now we have less UK pork production capacity as a result.

[Pootle]

We buy all our meat from our fantastic butcher - his chickens are great! An average sized one will feed us (2 adults/3 children) a roast dinner and have enough leftovers for a curry for 2 adults, plus a bit left for the cat.

You really notice the difference in the amount of water that comes out of a supermarket chicken and those from the butcher - the meat on the FR ones is more dense and so goes much further. The same goes for all the meat from the butcher really - so we pay more for the meat we eat up front, but it goes further (if that makes sense) with much less waste.

The other thing you get with buying from a butcher is the advice on how to cook/prepare your chosen cut - expanding your cooking repertoire in the process.

One thing my Mum and Aunts did when I was small was to buy a whole lamb or a whole pig from the local butcher (he would prepare all the cuts for them) and then freeze it for later use. I'm seriously considering this option later on this year.

[Kristen]

"buy a whole lamb or a whole pig"

My mother did that, and we have a few times too, but we always wind up with cuts that are not really our cup-of-tea, and with more limited time than my Mother had we struggle to make use of them, and have reverted to just buying what we need at the butcher.

A new forum called "Meat swaps" perhaps, to rival "Seed swaps" ?

[rogesse]

My mum used to do that too, I don't remember any of it that weren't 'my cup of tea' - which must mean she found a way to diguise all those tubey bits, slimey entrails and truely disgusting parts........

[lynda66]

I paid over £10 for one at Tesco

£10 for a chicken *faints*

my whole meat budget for the week is only a max of £15, and for that we get either a joint of beef, pork or a chicken, chicken legs, pork chops, steaks and sausage or burgers, plus 2lb mince and a free cooked chicken

or 8 chicken legs, 4 big steaks, 8 pork chops, 2lb diced pork, a gammon joint and a free cooked chicken.

or various other fresh meat packs

i can't believe with prices that high, that people still buy meat at supermarkets

all our meat comes from the butchers, who have their own farms, and their own slaughter house.

wow, i'm truly shocked. if i had to pay that, i'd turn veggie.

Lynda xx

[SlugLobber]

I practically AM veggie, due to the prices of organic meat at both the supermarkets AND the butchers. I wasn't aware, though, that the balance was changing towards the butcher being cheaper. Am off into Banstead later for my shopping (complete with dry ice from work to freeze meat, tee hee!). I noticed yesterday that there's a large fruit and veg shop there, opposite a butcher, so fingers crossed I can do all my shopping WITHOUT a supermarket. Just need to write a list.

The only reason I ever go to supermarkets these days is convenience. I love going to the little shops, so am quite looking forward to my little outing later! I would ask for rabbit at the butcher, but OH's Dad shoots the little critters, so I can get that for free. Maybe I'll ask for venison instead - yum!

[BarleySugar]

I'm looking forward to the deer shooting season again. My brother goes, and usually sells the better cuts from his kill, but give me the shoulders and hocks, because no one can be bothered to stew them. As a 'special', I sometimes stew with red wine and marmalade, then cut the meat up for a pie. One shoulder makes 2 pies large enough for 4 of us. Not bad, and the cats love the bits we don't want.
On the minus side, OH does the shopping, and will insist on getting everything at the supermarket. He hates going to seperate shops.

[Mikey]

I can't be doing with the whole pig, as a kid my nana used to boil the head in an open pan. Still sends a shiver down my back, watching her strip it, some things I prefer not to see.

[Starchild]

Should have watched the F word last night...I was heaving during the pig eating where Tom Parker-Bowells was eating every part, and I mean EVERY part of a pig I I don't usually squirm away from stuff like that!

[Mikey]

I'm glad I missed that then.