I was a vegetarian for about four years when I was a teenager; the result of an ill advised (or surprisingly progressive?) school trip to a battery chicken farm.  I think about half the class went veggie for at least a while after that one. 

Slowly I started to realise that it wasn’t the eating of meat that bothered me, but rather the journey that the meat took in order to reach my plate.  I don’t mind killing animals (even personally) in order to eat them, but I don’t see why that means they have to suffer before, or excessively during, slaughter. 

I’m not going to pontificate about the treatment of animals during factory farming; there are hundreds of books out there all about it.  I recommend Not On The Label by Felicity Lawrence and Meat by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall if you want to read a bit about it.  Weepix recommends The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.   Suffice to say that most animals raised in factory farms have unnaturally short, brutal and undignified lives.

I don’t want to eat something that has been rushed to my plate as fast as possible with profit topping the list of producer concerns.

The upshot of me wanting to ensure the provenance of what is on my plate was this week’s inaugural meat order with Feather and Bone.  They provide a fine seasonal range of carefully sourced meat and meat products.  Is it more expensive than the supermarket?  Of course, but not by as much as you’d think and I’m happy to eat less meat in order to pay more for what I do have.

The first order comprised:

• A 2.2kg chicken
• 500g of aged chuck steak 
• 500g of pork mince
• 750g of chicken Marylands (legs and thighs)
• 1kg minute steaks (can’t beat a quick steak sandwich)
• 1.4kg of goat shoulder
• 500ml of chicken stock

The whole lot was about $110 which is not too shabby considering the volume.  It’ll last two weeks without breaking a sweat.

We cooked the chicken on the barbecue last night and I’m happy to say it was fantastic.  The meat is rich and intensely flavoured and a leg and thigh each is more than enough for dinner, which leaves us with enough for chicken sandwiches and a chicken and feta salad for later (recipes to follow!).  Deglaze the pan with some white wine, add in a bit of Dijon and sour cream and it also provides a fantastic gravy. 

The chicken sandwiches were incredible.  Spread some of the left over gravy across the bread, slice up one of the chicken breasts (still running with juice after a night in the fridge) and pile on some left over lettuce with peas and avocado.  Bit of homemade coleslaw on the side.  Sandwiches can be wonderful things.

The bird may have cost $30 but it’s giving us six generous serves and providing stock for another.  I can live with paying $6 a serve for my chicken, especially when it tastes this good.

Up next is Jamaican curry goat (never goat curry!). 

Now this is the sort of food story that gets me excited.  It’s got everything – wine, miniature sheep, clever sustainability, giant guinea pigs locked in combat with eagles – perfect. 

I worked in sustainability and waste management for several years and I’ve lost count of the number of businesses that want to ‘reduce their carbon footprint’ by continuing exactly as normal but planting a few trees to offset the energy they use.  Don’t get me wrong the trees are great, but not using the energy in the first place is even better.  Peter Yealands (who, just to make the story even better, has an awesome beard) obviously understands that and is doing something about it.

In order to provide the grapes with the best growing conditions, he needs to keep the grass on his 1000 hectare estate trimmed.  This requires a tractor to travel 3500 km a year, which costs NZ$1.5 million, releases a large amount of Co2, nitrous oxides, sulphides and particulates and, no doubt, takes a huge amount of man power.  What to do?  Bring on the sheep of course……well it is New Zealand.  Not conventional sheep, which are widely used, but can also eat the grapes, oh no, we’re talking specially bred miniature sheep.  Let them loose to take care of the grass (provide additional fertiliser?) and, trials going well, you’ve saved yourself a small fortune, saved a load of harmful emissions and reduced your workload.  I love it. 

Obviously you still have to invest time in animal husbandry and potentially spend some money for additional feed, winter shelter and vets etc, but, even if the scheme ends up breaking even in a monetary/time sense, you’re still streets ahead with the emissions……assuming miniature sheep don’t fart too much.  He’s also planning to sell the wool and the meat from his new sustainable lawnmowers, which generates even more income.  The man is my new hero. 

I’ve not tried Yealands wine before but I’ll certainly be looking out for it now.