Of cuts

Having become very accustomed to, and fascinated by, butchery in Britain, I sometimes feel that there is something really wasteful about the way meat, especially lamb, is butchered in India. There is absolutely no distinction made between the various cuts. Lamb is broadly divided into the shoulder, the leg and the ribs. You can get paya (trotters) or the neck in particular, if that's what you are after, but mostly the meat is chopped up indiscriminately, into either medium, large or small pieces. With bone or boneless.

But then, this only bothers me because the sort of food I have in mind, stuff like loin steaks, braised shanks, Frenched chops (cooked rare of course) mean nothing to most Indians. I have come to the realisation that the kind of food I like would never make me millions in India. I got my butcher to cut me some double chops once - it was a very small lamb and single rib chops weren't thick enough - for some grilled minted chops I was making for one of my father's parties. When I cooked them it very quickly became apparent that no one there shared my love for meat cooked rare. Most Indians don't understand cooking meat to taste. The meat is either raw or cremated. And they like it cremated.

The way meat is butchered in India is a result of the kind of cooking. Curries are stewed for a fair bit, or cooked in a pressure cooker, so even the toughest meat goes tender. All the spices over shadow the meat's taste and make it, with its fat content, a carrier of flavour rather than something of flavour itself. Sometimes to get the meat really tender, very young animals are slaughtered - I have eaten curries with bones that looked like they came from a rodent (maybe they did) - and on other occasions the animals are over 2 years old - meat that would be considered mutton in Britain and isn't really used that much.

If I have been informed correctly, lamb is cheaper than goat (chevon) in India and some butchers will regularly peddle lamb to goat expecting customers. Again, as long as customers are getting meat they don't seem to care. Butchers will sometimes leave the tail hairs on the carcass to show customers that they are indeed selling goat. My butcher gave me a funny look when I first categorically asked for lamb. But then with the amount of business I give him, he will happily do as I say.

And hanging meat to mature? Unheard of. The quicker the animal goes from slaughter to pot, the better it is considered. This makes perfect sense given the lack of refrigeration at most butchers'. But why does all this concern me? Well, because what I can cook is limited by what the butcher can give me.

Solution? Butcher your own animals.

This only arrived in the post the other day. Even if I do not rear my own lamb anytime soon, I am keen to start working on carcasses or quarters bought from the butcher. It's just another way to get a little bit more involved with your food.