From the plains to the sea.

Meat weeks: 7 & 8. Thursday 12th - Wednesday 25th February.

After a couple of weeks of narrowly making my meat deadline, week 7 was going to be a more relaxed affair. Granted, once again it was going to be Wednesday night, the last possible time for my new meat to be eaten, when the meal would take place, but this time there was to be no hassle - we planned well in advance what it was going to be, and I was looking forward to my first less-usual animal - deer.

Now, venison isn't completely unusual, but it's not your regular day to day meat, and I was interested to have it, as it's something I hadn't had for a long, long time. So, when Wednesday rolled around, Laura went to try and pick up some venison. Unfortunately, Morrison's had none, and so she rang to see if I could pick some up. By this point, however, it was quarter past four, and so I quickly jumped on a bus from town (which I have just this moment realised was pretty stupid, when I could have gone to St John's Market) and headed up towards Allerton Road, where I knew of a couple of good butcher shops. Neither of which had fresh venison...

So suddenly I had a little panic. From being so organised, we now had a slight pickle. However, I was in a butchers. Surely he must have something interesting for me? Frozen venison wasn't going to cut the mustard, as it wouldn't have time to thaw. All the other interesting meats he had were also frozen...until he mentioned the prime ostrich steak he had, fresh, in the back. A quick call to Laura to check that it was ok, and away we went.

So, my first step into the world of not-easy-to-get-hold-of-in-a-supermarket meat was with ostrich. Ironically, we actually have a bundle of ostrich burgers in the freezer, as Phil-San had accidentally left them here when he was over in December, but I'd held off having them until we could have proper ostrich meat, as I didn't want to sully the task with processed meat as my first tasting of the year, and had decided that I'd get them out of the freezer after I'd had ostrich steak for the first time. Now was that time.

The steak that was brought out was just shy of a pound and a half in weight, and about an inch thick - perfect, essentially. I bought the whole thing, got it cut into two - the knife went through it like a hot knife through butter - and set off to pick up the ingredients Laura wanted for out revised menu - blue cheese and parsley, for a delicious blue cheese sauce. Being unsure of whether or not ostrich was safe to eat bleu, which is my usual steak preference, we cooked it a little more, although the thickness ensured that it was still lovely and red in the middle. Served with the sauce on the side for me, and drizzled over the top for Laura, and with a selection of vegetables, it looked delicious.

Taste wise, ostrich had a hint of something I couldn't quite put my finger on. It tasted very very slightly of iron, I think, although Laura felt that that could have been just from the fact that it was so pink. I don't agree, mainly as I always have my steak practically raw, and it doesn't taste like that, which leads me to believe it's something in the meat itself. The main thing about ostrich is that it is exceptionally lean - there wasn't an ounce of fat on the cut I got, and the outdoor lifestyle of the animal is clear from the taste. It's quite gamey, and has a lovely clean texture. I assume we got a very good cut, as the meat really did just fall apart, and melted in your mouth. The sauce was a nice accompaniment, although I tended to eat the meat without, just to get the full flavour of it.

Althogh not cheap (my piece was £15.50, and the kg price was £26), ostrich is something that I will definitely be putting on my list of occassional meats - those that are for more of a special occassion than your everyday beef or pork. To be fair, for two roughly ten ounce steaks, that wasn't actually too bad a price, although it will have to be a treat-y thing in the future. Unless we can get some deals from the ostrich farmer that comes to the farmer's market...

I had an interesting discussion with the butcher while figuring out which meat to get, though. I outlined the challenge to him, and he came back with a list of meats he can get me - from kudu and various 'boks, to numerous birds, to crocodile. I think I may have found a supplier for many of my future meats...

Week 8 was going to be nowhere near as close to the bone. I already knew when and where I would be having my meat - I just didn't know which one yet.

Last weekend, as I'm sure you'll all know, was Valentine's Day. The celebration of love, and all things cherub-y, however, had passed us by slightly, as we were doing friend duty. This is a Good Thing, as it allowed us to save our Valentine's Day for this weekend, the 20-22nd, meaning we got to go to the restaurant we actually wanted to, and didn't pay stupid, over-inflated prices. On top of that, it gave us an extra week to find presents...

Laura is mildly obsessed with Teppanyaki, a Japanese style of cooking which involves you sitting around the chef's workstation as he prepares your food in the middle of the restaurant. The experience, as dining out goes, is wonderful - the chefs invariably put on a show, flipping eggs, throwing bowls, generally juggling all manner of kitchen implements, and having fun with your food. It's really interesting to watch the cooking process, on top of everything else, and every time we've been, the food has always been superb. It was yet another place, however, where people looked surprised when I asked for my steak bleu - even stranger when you consider what I had had for a starter...

When the menu came round, I knew that there were going to be lots of possibilities. I had to throw some out though, for logistics purposes - eel, which I've never eaten, went out the window as there are just too many fish, and they would not be difficult to complete. It seemed pointless to have prawns or giant clam, as molluscs or crustaceans are so easy to get hold f. What to have, what to have..? Then I saw it. I had been thinking about having squid, because it was annoying me not being able to have it when we went out, but when I spotted octopus on the sushi menu, I decided to have that. Being much more difficult to get hold of, in general, than squid, it seemed like a good idea to do it now, and, if I did stumble across it on any other menu, then it would serve squid's purpose nicely.



I'm not often a great fan of sushi - for some reason, and I don't know if it's something to do with the rice or possibly soy sauce, which I really don't like, I always finds it tastes slightly of ammonia. Still, I was willing to take one for the team on this one, all the while prepared to dispense with the rice and just eat the octopus. When it came out, though, I was pleasantly surprised, as there appeared to be no sauce on the thing at all, and so I popped one in my mouth.



This was the first totally raw animal I'd eaten this year, and it still messes with my head that they just don't bother cooking the animals at all. I'm still not fully sure how that works, as we're constantly told not to undercook meat, and I really should find out. I'll try to remember to do that. Anyway, octopus shares certain characteristics with squid, in that it's exceptionally chewy. Other than that, it's texture is quite unremarkable, as the creature is very smooth. Taste wise, it tastes, well seafood-y. That is to say, slightly salty. Really, it's not a very flavoursome meat, although it's certainly not offensive, and doesn't even start to worry the gag reflex, as some seafood can have a propensity to do. As a starter for a wholly wonderful meal, it was lovely, and a nice change of pace from what I might usually have. On top of this, it's the first meat yet for which we have pictures, so that's exceptionally exciting, obviously.

Most importantly of all, however, is that it's the start of another category of animal. As I predicted, weeks are now starting to take a little more planning, although are beginning to get more interesting for it. Each week brings a new and exciting challenge, and we're coming very close now to things I've never before eaten. I'm sure you're all as excited as I am. So, for now, and until next time...

Stay Meaty.

And, for those who like to keep up to date...

Herbivore Mammals
Bovine - Cow, week 2
Ovine - Sheep, week 5
Marsupia
Rodentia

Omnivore Mammals
Porcine - Pig, week 1
Rodentia (a different one to the herbivore one)

Carnivore Mammals
Canine

Anthropods
Insecta
- Winged
- Unwinged
Aracnid
Crustatia
- Land
- Sea

Reptilia
Lizard/Snake

Amphibians
Frog/toad

Fish
Scaled fish - Salmon, week 6
Flat fish
Shark

Mollusca
Bivalvia
Cephalopoda - Octopus, week 8.
Gastropoda

Plus 10 different types of Bird - Turkey, week 3; Chicken, week 4; Ostrich, week 7.
Plus 2 Animals from classifications NOT on the list

Worth the wait...?

Meat weeks: 4, 5 and 6; Thursday January 22 - Wednesday February 11th. (I'll be doing this for each post from now on. I like it as a method of keeping score.)

Well, what can I say? It's been almost three weeks since my last entry. The only excuses I can give are a) busyness, and b) laziness. Probably the latter, rather more than the former, but for some reason, the muse just has not been upon me of late. I intend to make up for that now though.

Actually, forget that entire last paragraph, and just imagine that I told you that I'd left it so long on purpose due to the fact that the early animals are fairly dull. Yes, that's a nicer explanation...

For the next week, I was staying in Birmingham, ostensibly to keep Tara company while Richard was away, although legitimately to watch the Royal Rumble. For ease of eating this week, I decided to go with chicken.

You know, there's a reason that we eat so many chickens in this country - they're bloody delicious. Honestly, the flesh of that little bird is phenomenal, and you don't really appreciate it until you've not had one for ages. In fact, my mouth is beginning to water as I write. Luckily, Laura and I are very compatible, in that I'm a leg man, whilst she loves breast, meaning no arguments over who gets what. She does, however, think that eating the skin is all kinds of wrong, and is trying to stop me doing it. Apparently it's unhealthy. It's also damn tasty, so I can't see me giving it up any time soon (although I have stopped eating pork crackling, for the most part, so there's a concession towards a better lifestyle.)

Tara and I had chicken early on in the week, which meant there was to be no repeat of last week's mad rush at the end of the week, but then ate pretty unhealthily for the rest of the week. That ade me sad, as I don't like to do it too often, but it was easier than cooking lots every night, particularly as Richard only has about 2 pans. One night, however, we did go out to the Big Wok, a Chinese buffet in Birmingham, which once again saddened me. I quite like the food there, but my favourite thing about any Chinese buffet is always the foo yung, and they had a prawn foo yung, which meant I couldn't have any. Again, it's rare that this challenge, so far, is bringing me any major issues, but the lack of seafood is one. I love seafood, shellfish in particular, but have been sadly lacking in any so far. Still, it can only be a matter of time...

Now, for week 5, I had planned to have the wood pigeon breasts that are in my freezer. However, that went out of the window when Laura and Richard went out to pick up dinner one night, and came back with a pizza which had lamb on it. Faced with the choice of eating lamb, and throwing my plans out of whack, or eating only a vegetarian pizza which had on it more vegetables that I'm not keen on than that I am, I took the executive decision to leave the pigeon in the freezer for another week.

The weekend saw Laura and I visit London to see my good friend Dean, who was appearing as Buddy in the Buddy Holly Story. Top class entertainment, I might add. With the week's meat already taken care of, I didn't have to worry too much about what I was eating, other than avoiding new animals, which didn't prove too difficult.

Because of the pizza blunder, when we got back to Liverpool, Laura and I were able to have a lovely roast leg of lamb, roast vegetables and yorkshire puddings. My yorkshire puddings are becoming legend around these parts, which I put mainly down to my dad's superb instructions the first time I made them. They amounted, essentially, to 'chuck stuff in until it looks right.' I've been doing so ever since, and have just about got it right now, and the purchase of a deep yorkshire pudding tin has helped no end. Unfortunately, our oftentime eating partners, Jamie and Amanda, were unable to join us, as Amanda won't eat lamb. Apparently, she doesn't realise that it's lamb, not a lamb. Still, more for us, and we ended up having lamb sandwiches and stew for the next couple of days. I'd never realised quite how much meat there was on one of those legs.

So, we reach the last week. I didn't really have chance to sort out any meat early in the week, as I had to undertake the Monopoly Board pub crawl for a friend's stag party. We actually did pretty well, managing to get round 19 of the board's 22 squares, but that's a different story for a different blog. The plan for the week, anyway, was, once again, have that wood pigeon. However, when we went to the freezer to get out the breasts, Laura noticed some salmon fillets we'd had there for a while, and so, once again, my plans were changed, and the poor unloved wood pigeon was stuck back into the freezer. One day...

Laura choosing to eat fish at all is a pretty big deal, so I was happy to go with it, and decided that I would make my personal fish sauce. I'm quite proud of it, because I invented it myself (although I don't doubt that thousands of people have made pretty much the exact same sauce before me, but I never looked it up or anything, I just decided to make a sauce one day to go with some trout that I'd bought, and came up with it) although I have had to make a concession to healthy-ness by replacing the cream with creme fraiche, which didn't really make a noticable difference. It consists solely of white wine, cream/creme fraiche, cheese, garlic and herbs - very simple, but it's mine, so there.

Anyway, we had that with some baby new potatoes, baby corn on the cob (I have a thing about baby vegetables with fish for some reason), julienne carrots and green beans, and some really nice salmon fillets, which I, having never cooked salmon before, unfortunately slightly overcooked, so, although it was still edible, and really quite tasty, wasn't as flaky as we might have expected. Ah well, you live and learn. And, quite frankly, it was nice to have some fish on the menu for the first time this year.

So far this year, one of the main things I've discovered is just how flavoursome many of the meats we regularly eat are. It's only when you've not had them for quite some time that you realise exactly how good animals taste.

Another thing I've discovered, however, is that my own attitudes towards meat are changing. I'm far more aware now, having taken more notice of the food I'm eating, of how the animals are reared and slaughtered. I've been watching all the food programmes that have been on at the start of the year, and really changing some of my eating habits. For example, Laura and I have decided that we're going to eat less meat this year (if that doesn't sound really strange, given what I'm doing), but better quality meat. This will have the knock on effect, about which I'm very happy, that we will be giving business to our local butchers, rather than just to the supermarkets. On top of that, as the grocers are in the same area, we'll probably end up going there for fresh vegetables as well, all of which makes me happy, as I'd much rather not give all our food money to big companies.

Another change I'm making, having looked a little into the slaughter process, is that I am no longer eating halal or kosher meat if I know that it is such. I can't really, in all good conscience, and knowing how animals are killed for food in British non-religious abbatoirs, accept that it is neccessary for anything to suffer unduly to provide me with food. Unfortunately, some of the religious instructions on the killing of animals just don't sit kindly with me, and so I made my decision. I've also had cause to put my new resolve to the test, when, while at Richard's in Birmingham, we ordered food from a Halal takeaway (do you see a pattern developing in my terrible eating habits when in the Midlands?) and, rather than eat the meat, I went vegetarian, which may be the first time in history that I've willingly chosen vegetarian food when meat was freely available. I was pleased with that though, as it was the first test of my convictions, and I passed, which proves to me that I can do it full time.

So, there you go. I'm now entering my 7th week of the challenge, and can so far eat 6 different animals. As things stand, we're ticking along quite nicely, although I am wondering if I'll ever actually have wood pigeon or not. I'm looking forward to getting into some more intersting beasts, and will shortly be researching the animals of Eastern Europe, as a friend of mine, actually Dean from up there ^^^, is going to be getting married in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in September, and so we will be undertaking a trek across the continent, taking in various countries and cuisines. It could be very useful for meats which are uncommon to Britain, and at a useful time of the year. And everyone loves a wedding!

So, there you go. I'm sorry it's taken so long, and thank you to those people who've badgered me - it's nice to know my ramblings are being read! The next one will be sooner, I promise. So, until then...

Stay meaty!

And, for those who like to keep up to date...

Herbivore Mammals
Bovine - Cow, week 2
Ovine - Sheep, week 5
Marsupia
Rodentia

Omnivore Mammals
Porcine - Pig, week 1
Rodentia (a different one to the herbivore one)

Carnivore Mammals
Canine

Anthropods
Insecta
- Winged
- Unwinged
Aracnid
Crustatia
- Land
- Sea

Reptilia
Lizard/Snake

Amphibians
Frog/toad

Fish
Scaled fish - Salmon, week 6
Flat fish
Shark

Mollusca
Bivalvia
Cephalopoda
Gastropoda

Plus 10 different types of Bird - Turkey, week 3; Chicken, week 4.
Plus 2 Animals from classifications NOT on the list