Firstly, as seems to be becoming mandatory, an apology for my shoddiness - I realise that it has been forever since my last update, so let me get my excuses in now: I had gone to my parents' and not taken my SD card reader with me, so was unable to post the photos that I wanted to, so figured I would just update when I got back. What actually happened, however, was that I got back, and found that I couldn't find my card reader. No worries, thought I, I'll pop and get another one (the one I had/have is a cheap one from Home Bargains, so it wasn't too much of a worry.) However, it appears that they don't have them anymore, so, having spent the last few days looking for one, I’ve resigned myself to a) having to buy a new, probably more expensive one at some point in the future; b) having lost the SD card that is in that reader; and c) having to use the camera's cable to transfer my pictures across, which is incredibly annoying because I can't then pick and choose which ones I want, and will have to wait an age while every photo on my camera transfers over. Arse. Ally that to the fact that I'm rubbish at getting things done anyway, and you can see why this has taken so long...
Anyway, onto business. As I've said before, the fourth Saturday of every month sees the Liverpool Farmers' Market arrive on Lark Lane, just round the corner from my house, bringing with it myriad possibilities for my delectation and delight. This time around, we plumped for a venison joint, and also picked up some veal escalopes, which excited me muchly - although it's not a new animal, I'd never previously eaten veal before, and new stuff always rocks my world...
So, with the week's meat organised nice and early, we could relax, until Wednesday night rolled around, and I slid the joint into the oven. As per usual, we made roasted vegetables to go with our meat. We've found roast veg to be the best option to go with meals, as it's simple to prepare, and gets us a deal more than the recommended 5 portions of fruit and veg a day, as well as us being able to do more than we need, and use the rest in soups or with couscous for lunch. All in all, brilliant. We tend to use any or all of courgette, carrot, parsnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, tomatoes, onion and peppers (generally multi-coloured for the look of things), lightly drizzled with olive oil, and with crushed garlic liberally applied throughout. They tend to be pretty much delicious, and I've yet to find a meat that they don't go with.
Back to the matter in hand. The venison was only a fairly small joint, and cooked for approximately an hour. The meat was tender, and sliced very easily. Now, I can't remember if I've ever had venison before, and, if I'm perfectly frank, I was slightly underwhelmed. Flavour-wise, there was nothing too special about it, and the meat wasn't quite as lean as I had hoped it would be. Strangely, I found that the fattier portion of the meat, at the top of the joint, actually tasted rather like lamb, which, while not a bad thing, was somewhat unexpected. I had suspected that this might be because they were ovine creatures in some way, although a quick look on Wikipedia suggests not - in fact, I have no idea where they will fit in to this challenges categories, given what I've just seen on there. My best guess so far is corvine, and that’s where I’m going to put them on the list for now, although I am going to wait for confirmation from Captain Meat on his definition (which is, of course, final). We may, in fact, have our first entry into the 'other' list...
Overall, venison is definitely something I will try again, as I can't be sure if we just got a less than brilliant joint, but if ours was standard, then I don't think, given its relative expense and difficulty to get hold of compared to lamb, pork and beef, I will be searching too hard for it in future.
Having racked up another week of meaty goodness, Laura and I prepared to take a trip to Leeds, and my parents' house. Saturday saw us attend the wedding of an old friend of mine (well, I say we attended, in fact I did, and Laura went to the wrong church. She had to come along after we'd set off to pick up the bride, got confused, and ended up at a church with, admittedly, the same name, but a children's party, rather than the celebration of a sacred union between two people. Still, she got there in the end), which brought with it the chance to grab a prawn sandwich. However, I rejected this opportunity for the same reason that I had turned down using ostrich burgers as a new meat – when I’m eating something, I want to properly eat it, not some processed version of it. Obviously there are some times when that won’t really be an option, but I’ll get there shortly…
I had decided that I’d stay at my parents’ for a few days, primarily because Leeds were playing at home on the Tuesday night, and it gave me a chance to get up to Elland Rd, which is always welcome. The only problem was, would I be able to get hold of a new meat? It was unlikely that there’d be anything interesting in my mum’s, although if worst came to worst, I could always go downmarket and have some tuna. Luckily, it didn’t come to that. My sister and her boyfriend had recently returned from Canada, and she had brought me, as a present, something to help me along in my quest – mealworms.
Now, I’d never knowingly eaten an insect before, but, buoyed by an excellent 4-0 victory, I opened them up when I got home. Now, here is where my first processed version comes in. Obviously, as these had been brought back from abroad, they weren’t exactly fresh. In fact, they were Barbecue flavoured. Still, they still looked like worms (they even had little legs at the front of their bodies) and I still had that same frisson of weirdness that I would have got from eating a fresh insect, so I took a few in my hand, and popped them in my mouth, and they were…unremarkable. The best way I can describe them is that, by virtue of being prepared as they had, they had the consistency of Wotsits. The BBQ flavour was not very strong, so I felt that I did get a little flavour of the actual worm, but, like Wotsits, I ended up having to take a drink to clean my mouth out, as it was full of worm powder. Since I’ve had them, Ben has told me that, apparently, fresh mealworms, deep fried, taste like shrimp. Unfortunately, when he came up to visit that weekend, we didn’t get to the pet shop in time to get some and put this to the test, although that will definitely be being done at some point. If I’m going to do this, I want to do it right.
I came back from my mum’s with a fresh week ahead of me. But what to have this week? With no plans in mind, the meat world was my oyster (which, incidentally, is a creature that I’ve never eaten. Maybe later on in the year…) Now, Laura has been going on at me for a while to comprise a list of animals so that we can have something to work from, but, as of yet, I’ve still not done this fully – I’ve made a start, about a month ago, but never actually got round to finishing it. I really should do that, as it will prevent this kind of problem happening again…
Once more, the weekend passed, and I’d not yet had my new meat. Tuesday came, and my trying to figure out what it should be just resulted in my being yelled at for not yet having completed my list. However, I had the glimmer of an idea – on Wednesday, the final day of the meat week, I planned to go to Southport. For those of you that don’t know, Southport is a smallish seaside town in the North-West of England, and, as such, I imagined that I would have no problem finding a new seafood to eat. However, this proved more difficult than I expected. I was hoping to find cockles or winkles, something I could buy a pot of and eat by the sea in traditional British seaside holiday fashion, but there was not a stall to be found. No fish and chip shops sold them, there seemed to be no fishmongers anywhere (I realised later on, after Laura had made my decision for me, that they were in the market, which I didn’t find until too late), and time was running out.
Luckily, Laura rang from the supermarket. I explained my dilemma, and she came up with the wonderful idea of getting some mussels. This hadn’t occurred to me, and so I was very happy to go along with the plan, especially as I love mussels.
Now, it was while in Southport that I had a bit of a revelation. Recently, I’ve been getting so wound up in finding and eating weird and wonderful (or, at least, not my usual) animals, that I’d lost sight of the original plan – to eat a different species of animal each week for a year. I walked past numerous fish and chip shops, worrying about not being able to find a new animal, when all along there were cod, plaice and haddock available. All of these are as viable as any other species, yet I dismissed them pretty much out of hand. This is something I’m really going to have to think about for the future, as, although I really do want to find and try new meats, I don’t want to fail this challenge when there is an obvious solution available.
Anyway, back to the matter in hand. Laura had brought home some mussels, which I had as a starter for my dinner that evening. They were unbelievably easy to cook, which I’m sure will come as no surprise to anyone who’s cooked them before, but seeing as I hadn’t, I expected to have to do a lot more than put them in a pan and switch on the heat. The pack I had came with a garlicky sauce, which eliminated the need for any further water, and flavoured the molluscs wonderfully. I was lucky in that none of the mussels failed to open, so I got to enjoy them all – and very tasty they were too.
For anyone who’s never eaten mussels, I really must recommend them. Granted, they look disgusting – essentially like a giant, hard ball of phlegm, if I’m honest – but they’re really quite delicious. They taste quite salty, but that is always overcome by a good sauce, and they have a really quite delightful texture - a little chewy, not as much as the likes of squid, but enough that you certainly know you’re getting some good old fashioned protein inside you., but never too tough. A word of warning though – if the shell of the mussels you wish to eat doesn’t open when the creature is cooked, then it is not safe to force it open and eat it, as, I believe, that means the animal is still alive. I could be wrong, of course, but you’re still only supposed to eat them when they open.
So, I managed to successfully negotiate another three weeks worth of meat based adventuring, and now have some more lined up. This weekend just gone, we went to Manchester’s Trafford Centre for a birthday, and Laura took it upon herself to pop into Selfridges and pick me up some more insect goodies – Thai Green Curry flavoured crickets, Chocolate Covered Giant Ants (I plan on uncovering one of the ants, and eating him on his own) and a scorpion encased in toffee. She also got me a bag of mealworms, not realising that they were the same ones as I’d already had, which afforded me the chance to offer them round to everyone else, proving that this really is the challenge that just keeps on giving. It looks like I might have an interesting couple of weeks coming up…
So, after what seems like an age, you finally get another update. I promise to you all that I’m keeping up with my meats much better than I am this blog, although I am claiming extenuating circumstances, due to the fact that I very rarely get time to actually sit down and write as there are always people here. Case in point – I started this update on Friday night, but had to stop when visitors arrived. We had company for the whole weekend, and this evening is the first chance I’ve had to actually get anything else done since then, although, on the plus side, I have managed to find another SD card reader, so there will be more pictures going up shortly. I say shortly because I’m going to get this up straight away, just to sate all your appetites.
So, with humble apologies for my appallingness, and heartfelt thanks for you taking the time to keep up with my exploits, I bid you all a fond farewell for now, and say to you all…
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
Arthropods
Insecta
- Winged
- Unwinged – Mealworms, Week 10 (Mealworm Beetle Larva)
Arachnid
Crustatia
- Land
- Sea
Reptilia
Lizard/Snake
Amphibians
Frog/toad
Fish
Scaled fish - Salmon, week 6
Flat fish
Shark
Mollusca
Bivalvia – Mussels, week 11
Cephalopoda - Octopus, week 8.
Gastropoda
Plus 10 different types of Bird -
Plus 2 Animals from classifications NOT on the list – Deer (Cervine), Week 9.
