Lucinda Perks' family began farming in 1993 after 30 odd years in the hospitality business because they wanted to serve locally and ethically reared meat with real flavour. Today, they own and run The Butchers Hall farm shop and The Parrot Inn at Forest Green, Dorking, and farm 500 acres of the Surrey Hills. Here, Lucinda gets on her hobby horse about the latest scandal to hit the food industry.
“Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you what you are.” So said Brillat Savarin, the 18th century French gastronome.
That’s all very well, but made all the harder if you don’t know what you are eating in the first place.
Rather than writing a piece questioning modern methods of food production, I am going to explain a little about our processes so you are able to make your own minds up.
My family started farming 20 years ago in the Surrey Hills, disillusioned with the quality of meat available at that time. We owned dining pubs and wanted to serve locally and ethically reared meat with real flavour. This meant – and still means - a number of things to us: traditional, rare breeds, extensive rearing and ‘good old fashioned’ husbandry to provide us with meat that really does taste like it used to.
All our pies are handmade on site at our farm shop The Butchers Hall at Forest Green, Surrey with love and attention. We make batches daily of only 20 and even the pastry is made as you would at home. Nothing frozen here!
Pork – all the meat is from our Middlewhite x Saddleback pigs, grazed in Dorking.
Lamb – at time of writing, February 2013, we are out of stock of our own lamb. We are buying whole lambs that have been born and bred in Sussex, slaughtered at Adversane, and delivered directly back to Butchers Hall. Our lambs should be ready at the end of March.
Beef – our suckler herd of Sussex and Shorthorns cannot provide us with a constant supply of prime cuts. Primarily we use Angus that has grazed at Speyside. I have visited the abbatoir to check provenance and admired their dry-aging chillers.
Good meat is worth every penny
Farm shops are sometimes accused of being expensive. At The Butchers Hall, we price check against supermarkets and you will find that we are comparable on price with their best quality. However, we reckon ours is better and you know where it has come from.
We do understand that we are a little remote and extra effort has to be made to visit us at Forest Green, though we can assure you it will be well worth it. We also offer a delivery service, so just give us a ring and we will deliver to your home or office. Alternatively you can collect from our adjacent dining pub, The Parrot, in the evening – why not call in for a drink and bite to eat?
Butchery and sausage making courses
How about booking in for a butchery course or sausage making course and you can REALLY see what happens!
Read more about The Butchers Hall
Tags: beef
farming
