Andrew Arbuckle on farming: Slow food education would put us a cut above the rest

Published on Sunday 2 May 2010 21:51

OVER the years, I have always eaten at set times. In fact, I was brought up on this system which saw breakfast on the table at 9:30am, lunch at noon – not five minutes past noon – and tea at 5pm at the end of the working day. That is the way it was and may still be in many farming households.

Over the years, I have had my share of fast food – most recently and intensively in a drive through parts of the United States, where it required great determination to avoid the many fast food chains along the roadside.

But up until this week, I had not experienced slow food. I admit I have been a bit tardy on the case as it has been around for a number of years. It was back in Italy in 1989 that some food enthusiasts decided to counteract what they saw as a threat from the fast food industry and set out to promote the virtues of food as an experience, not as merely a quick pit stop to take on fuel.

So, even if I have not been involved before I am now familiar with the Slow Food concepts that the food we eat should taste good, it should be mindful of the environment and the welfare of the animal and it should return a fair price to producers.

The event I attended was organised by Slow Food Fife and was addressed by Lauren Vernet, the food guru at Quality Meat Scotland, who cracks jokes and oozes enthusiasm for both Scotch beef and lamb.

He remarked that every Scottish beef farmer considers the beef he or she produces is the best but few actually put this to the test or taste.

He then pointed out that if wine is to be drunk with the meal most people will declare which kind of wine they want.

Now, my first recollection of a wine bottle on the table was the ubiquitous Blue Nun, but I have progressed to the point of preferring a new world red wine; a shiraz or merlot. That is as far as I have travelled in the wine route and I am unlikely to ever proceed to the point where you begin to specify which vineyards you prefer your tipple to come from.

But Vernet's point was that we never make the same distinctions when ordering beef – we never go into the butcher and ask for a fillet steak from a young Limousin heifer or a sirloin from a three-year-old Highland steer. Why not? he asked.

Having triggered our thought processes, we launched into tasting differing steaks and were asked to make up our minds on such diverse issues as tenderness, juiciness, texture, flavour, taste and even aftertaste.

I looked around as I felt I had accidentally joined a masterclass in food whereas I should have been enrolled in the novices section.

In the large crowd were some well-known chefs, a few food writers, some people who are just interested in food and a number of farmers' wives. This latter group had wisely sent their menfolk to a NFU Scotland hustings event while they had taken themselves along to this eating experience.

The audience were following Vernet's description of the meat and nodding wisely. But when I looked down at my score card, it brought back memories of a lifetime ago, when my school report card always said: "Must do better."

Vernet's comments mixed knowledge with enthusiasm. I did get down facts such as, "Rump steak is difficult because it consists of three main muscles and the muscle fibres run on different directions." And after tasting some parts of the cattle beast I had not previously encountered, thought I should be more adventurous in my next visit to the local butcher.

But I confess I did struggle with Vernet's enthusiasm when it spilled over into florid descriptions of the beef such as "it has the aroma of wet earth" and "you can smell the green shoots".

However, I did think that Vernet's class should be rolled out to the wider farming community and then we may get more advanced discussions on the meat we produce. Some producers might get a surprise.