A little meaty rant.

[beetle]

I was born in and raised on farms in several different Southern African countries, so I know a thing or two about meat. When I can, I make my own sausages, dried meats, salami's etc. but also buy from supermarkets when the need arises. I'm no food snob by any means but I'm aghast at the quality nose-dive that supermarket meat has taken. I know, I know, you pays your money and you takes your chances, as they say, but it seems even the mid level stuff is now pumped full of water/sugar/protein gunk.

Just cooked a £3 pack of 6 porkies from the one that rhymes with ''al fresco'' and the finished result is an embarrassment. Half of the skins came off, the bottom of the pan is a black, sticky, caramelised mess and the sossies are all shrivelled up like they had gone for a mid-December dip in the pool.

Don't get me started on the watery bacon and mince...

[Greg]

How do you rate the "finest" range in those product types ?

[DiscoDes]

Oct 12, 2014 17:10:38 GMT Greg said:

How do you rate the "finest" range in those product types ?

Overpriced!

[Greg]

Oct 12, 2014 17:19:01 GMT DiscoDes said:

Oct 12, 2014 17:10:38 GMT Greg said:

How do you rate the "finest" range in those product types ?

Overpriced!

Granted but is it overpriced quality meat or overpriced rubbish.

[beetle]

Oct 12, 2014 17:10:38 GMT Greg said:

How do you rate the "finest" range in those product types ?

Sausage wise, it's quite an extensive range now, so I haven't tried them all but in general, for a mass produced product, I think they are decent. Good quality casings and and some great flavour blends with a mostly high meat/low rusk ratio, which I like. Price-wise they are towards the upper end for 400g so would expect nothing less. Coming back to the flavours, I think the extensive range of different ones is what stands out. A bit like e-juice, the sheer range of flavours allows people to get introduced to variants they would never have been able to try or even considered before.

[DiscoDes]

Oct 12, 2014 17:45:41 GMT Greg said:

Oct 12, 2014 17:19:01 GMT DiscoDes said:

Overpriced!

Granted but is it overpriced quality meat or overpriced rubbish.

Depends on what you buy.... some are better than others, I bought some Chorizo style and the shrinkage was about 50%

Now, I do LOVE a good sausage (no sniggering) the best I get locally are good old pork bangers from a local farm shop or my (last) local butcher (bacon is fabulous too) the price from these farm shops is around the finest prices but IMO better quality.

[Pepperty]

thankfully there's a great local butcher near me and his prices are excellent and good quality meat.

I do buy from the supermarket but only if the meat is on offer ( at least half price) and even then I use pork/ beef/ chicken in stirfry, curry and fajitas - meals that are heavily spiced as there's very little flavour in the meat, so I agree fully with you!

our local butcher has award winning sausages... yay!

[b1mble]

And you just can't find droewors anywhere round here

[aliscampbell]

I was going to say that a good local butcher is the answer. Ours make his own sausages and bacon, no yuk or shrinkage. Every weekend there are queues out the shop, wish I could afford to buy all my meat there but it's not an option at the moment.

[igual]

I make my own biltong that's yum yum
If I had a stuffing machine I could make droewors . haven seen any for sale locally for ages.
Were lucky we have a farm shop 500 metres from front door.
Most supermarket meat is bloody appalling now even Morrison's has gone down hill.

[beetle]

Oct 12, 2014 19:18:11 GMT igual said:

I make my own biltong that's yum yum
If I had a stuffing machine I could make droewors . haven seen any for sale locally for ages.
Were lucky we have a farm shop 500 metres from front door.
Most supermarket meat is bloody appalling now even Morrison's has gone down hill.

I always cut some very thin strips when making biltong so that they cure quickly and I can grab some when the waiting is just too much to bear. Otherwise there would be bite marks on the edges of all the still-hanging ones

[Clivia]

we have a great farm shop close by - and their meat is sometimes cheaper than the one from the super market

I used to buy chickenlegs and cold meat from the german super market, whose employees wear blue and yellow - but we stopped doing that after some yukkie experience - now all meat and eggs come from the farm shop

[Raffles]

This thread has made me so hungry, and curious... so I've googled butchers in my area, and going to visit a few tomorrow.

[Chrissie]

Don't ask me - I'm vegetarian