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