Meat

Eat Local - Meat

An increasing amount of meat is being imported into NZ in processed meat products and convienience foods and our own farming practices are starting to change to the more intensive methods commonly used overseas. This makes me want to learn more about the meat I eat to make sure it's actually good food.

So nowadays we're thinking about what we chew - did it have a happy life? could it roam around and eat grass? was it fed growth hormones and antibiotics? Eating local meat is not a guarantee of a quality product and good animal welfare but it makes finding out easier.

Take local Tapawera sheep and beef farmers Karen and Daryl Trafford from Wangapeka Downs as an example.

They've recently started offering their vacume packed lamb direct to the public at the weekly Wednesday afternoon farmers market in Nelson and by arrangement.

This is seriously good meat, raised well and killed properly. And believe it or not it's also cheaper than a supermarket leg of lamb that's been in the freezer for who knows how long. Here's their price list. Shanks anyone?

Wangapeka Downs Farm Direct Lamb

My lamb is very local. My small flock of fat and happy ewe's keep the grass down and the freezer full. The lambs are killed and processed by Meat Solutions on Salisbury Road. All except this one...

Steady the pet lamb

Nitrate Free Bacon from Farm Fresh Meats

And pork is another reason to get to know the origins of what you're chewing. I think everyone, at some point on their journey to eating good food has a "real bacon" moment. Whether it's sow crates or white scummy wet tasteless bacon that get's you there, you will get there.

My "Real Bacon" moment came just before Christmas last year when local home kill Butcher Rik Taikato from Meat Solutions gave me some Wild Pork dry cured Bacon as a thank you for teaching him and some friends how to make cheese.

I knew after eating that Bacon that there was no going back. I searched out some good, even award winning, local providers of real bacon. Golden Salami in Golden Bay, Murchison Meats and O'Neill's Gourmet Butchery & Delicatessen in Richmond are three to be proud of.

However the best, in my humble opinion, is Farm Fresh Meats, main road Wakefield. Nitrate free 100% NZ Bacon - ingredients Pork, Salt, Natural Herbs & Brown Sugar - way to go.

And my bacon exploits didn't stop there ... I even decided to have a go at curing some myself. I read my old recipe books and decided I didn't have a chimney hollow to hang a hock in for a month so I had a think about how I smoke fish.

Seeing I had honey and manuka I decided that I would try and make a quick version of a honey cured, manuka smoked, streaky bacon.

I used a pork belly and none of the nitrate preservatives that many commercial cured meats contain and which are now widely known to be not so good for us.

Chop your piece of belly into big slabs. Make up a cure of 1/4 honey to 3/4's natural salt, enough to rub all over both sides of the meat.

Add some spices if you want but don't overdo it. I put in a few crushed juniper berries and black peppercorns.

Put the pieces of meat in a plastic or ceramic container in a cool place and turn every day for 2 or 3 days so it's all well coated and cured.

Remove the meat, rinse and pat dry. Manuka smoke for a couple of hours. Chill the pieces of pork then slice, bag up and freeze. Cook before eating. Yum.

Pork Belly after the Salt and Honey Curing

Cured pork belly after manuka smoking

I was quite impressed with this quick homemade bacon. It worked out at around $20 per kilo finished product which is on a par with a good quality shop bought bacon.

However I'm just a beginner when it comes to cured Meats. Doris Faulhaber, founder and Queen Bee of Bratwurst Grill, makes the most amazing range of traditional cured German small goods from smoked weiners to bratwurst.

She's at the Nelson and Mot markets, uses traditional methods and all NZ meat. Have a drool over her website.

My Black Orpington Rooster

Plucked and Gutted Roosters - Big Dish!

My Happy Hens

Chickens are another example of mass food production gone astray. I would much rather eat a fine free range rooster who has lived a little longer than the 8 weeks in a shed that most commercially raised birds get.

Recent studies suggest that free range poultry has more of the good things that we need, like Omega 3, than intensively raised birds. Is it a coincidence that fish - the ultimate free range food - are also high in Omega 3.

It's quite logical to me that a healthy animal, should make a healthy meal.

The older breeds of poultry that I raise take time to grow, I kill my birds for the table at around 6 to 7 months old and some breeds take up to 2 years to mature fully. Folks who kept chooks even as recently as 30 or 40 years ago knew which breeds were best for meat and which were best for eggs and they organised their flock accordingly.

My personal research has taught me that the Plymouth Barred Rock, Dorking and Light Sussex are the best of the old breeds for meat and that the Leghorn, Ancona, Barnevelder and the newer breed Brown Shavers are the best for egg production.

And if you haven't got the room or inclination to raise your own meat birds then Heuvels is one of the main producers of well reared organic free range birds that you'll see in some supermarkets.

Don't waste your money on birds marketed as free range which are still housed for most of their life and fed antibiotics. Just because something's been fed corn doesn't mean it's a better bird.

I haven't found a local supplier of good free range poultry yet but I've heard of a couple who are getting underway with this so watch this space.

Another reason to buy local meat is packaging. I know I've harped on about packaging already but meat packaging is awful - is it just me or do those styrofoam meat pack trays and gauze pads look like operating theatre waste?

Poor wee sausages I think when I see them all trussed up on their trays under sweaty glad wrap. And you can't recycle meat trays.

If you go to a good butcher they'll be able to offer you fresh cuts that aren't pre-packed.

Wild meat is also a great local food source. If you're lucky enough to know a hunter then wild goat, pig and even venison can be on the menu. This is lean meat that needs long slow cooking to bring out it's best but is well worth the effort.

I find rabbit casserole is a very satisfying and very local meat dish in my house. I also find my aim improves greatly with every young tree that they eat on my property. If you are eating rabbit, make sure it's liver is clean with no white spots and make sure you're a good shot.

So that's the low down on local meat. Raise it yourself if you've got room. Get a home kill butcher to kill it and process it for you if you can't. Catch it wild if you can.

Make the most of our local butchers and farm suppliers. They know their sources and will be happy to cut your meat fresh to order.

If you're handy with a knife and have a large freezer then a cheaper way of buying local meat is to ask your butcher for a side of mutton or pork that you can butcher at home into the cuts that suit you.

You're lucky I haven't got room to tell you about my sausage making experiment or burying the goat ... local meat stories you don't want to hear.

Last summers ducklings