A Very British Beef…
We’ve all been told it’s very rude
If we neglect to chew our food
But what is stocked in one big shop
Has caused my lower jaw to drop
So you can see stuck in my craw
What’s hard to swallow from that store.
For so it seems that Asda buyers
Are soundly failing to supply us
With home-grown beef or British lamb
And Sainsbury’s don’t give a damn
If they ship beef from foreign shores
To clog the chillers of their stores;
And Tesco too prefers to stock
Lamb bought from a foreign flock!
At Asda 58 percent
Of money paid for meat is spent
On cuts shipped in from overseas –
Explain to me the logic, please,
Of Asda filling up its shelves
With meat we haven’t grown ourselves
And seeming not to give a damn
About supplying British lamb
From British farms for Brits to eat
From plates heaped up with British meat.
The Co-operative will only source
Its meat from British farms of course
While M & S and Waitrose too
Sell only British meat to you.*
And likewise Morrison’s piles high
Its shelves with British meat to buy;
Yet why should any of us care?
We’ll buy our meat from anywhere:
We don’t insist on British Aisles,
We don’t mind that our food’s come miles
Across the globe to fill our gobs –
We’re anything but ‘foody snobs’!
And why insist on British meat
For all the evening meals we eat
When we can pick from foreign piles?
Why should we buy from Farmer Giles?
We don’t need farmers anyway,
Growing wheat and making hay,
Rearing beef and sheep and hog –
Let’s shoot the farmer and his dog!
Let’s shoot his wife and children too,
Let’s flush our farming down the loo!
And down the pan Old Giles will go
And we won’t notice, dear me no,
Cause we don’t eat his stuff at all –
It isn’t stocked in our Food Hall!
If you want local meat perchance
You may as well just drive to France
For there I think you’ll only find
Gallic pork with Gallic rind,
Gallic beef and Gallic ewe
Anywhere on sale to you.
So back to Tesco’s, off we go
(Every little helps, you know)
And back to Asda where the price
Is low (though “Buy cheap and buy twice”)
And back to Sainsbury’s, we’ll BOGOF
Quite happy that the grub we’ll scoff
Was all grown ‘there’ and not grown here!
For cut-price food, let’s raise a cheer
And tuck in to our Danish pork
And lift Thai chicken on our fork
And fry Dutch bacon in the pan
And laugh that it’s all cheaper than
The British stuff cause we don’t try it:
Domestic Market? We just don’t buy it!
* in October 2009
Gloria Smudd
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1
November 19, 2009 at 17:58 -
And though it may be sold as beef, it may not originate from cattle. If the source is Africa or South America, there’s a high chance it’s ZEBU – a tough meat from a wildebeest-type cross-breed. Apparently this scam is legal in the EU.
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2
November 19, 2009 at 18:05 -
3
November 19, 2009 at 19:11 -
EU quotas….. mind you, they don’t apply in reverse it seems…… very little Britsh meat in French or German shops.
Don’t blame the stores, blame our membership of the Fourth Reich………….
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4
November 19, 2009 at 19:39 -
Morrissons is ok – good for offal, eg ox heart, ox liver, etc, which I haven’t spotted elsewhere
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5
November 19, 2009 at 19:52 -
True about Zebu but there’s 10 times as much Aberdeen Angus sold as UK sourced than is produced in the UK (including AA ×’es). And Mrs Spratt would enjoy offal less if she saw the treatment ‘plucks’ get at the abattoir.
The best bet is to buy from a retail butcher whom you trust to have a direct commercial relationship with the farmer and where the farmer delivers his stock to the slaughterhouse and waits to see his carcases go into the chill room. Rare as hen’s teeth.
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6
November 19, 2009 at 19:53 -
7
November 19, 2009 at 19:54 -
Would any of you eat British Beef? I wouldn’t.
Fortunately, I have long been unable to afford it.
We don’t have Mad Cow Disease in France. Cows just hit their heads and fall over. Or perhaps they fall over and hit their heads. I don’t suppose it matters.
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8
November 19, 2009 at 20:02 -
Mackerel is a type of Fish, Anna, as I’m sure you know – me and the missus long ago lost interest in trying to catch them.
I think too much knowledge of the abattoir would spoil many people’s enjoyment of meat. -
9
November 19, 2009 at 20:48 -
Faux filet? At least the French are more honest about it.
Laurence – from where does all the “Aberdeen Angus” originate? Is it beef or zebu?
Sabot: yes you do have it en France! French farmers just bury the carcasses and do not tell the EU inspectors. British beef (if it is actually both British & beef) is now safer than continental beef, as we owned up to & cleaned up our BSE problem. But buying locally from a known source is obviously best.
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10
November 19, 2009 at 21:07 -
Ed P. Never, I do not believe it. France would never do such a thing.
I can’t help it if French Bollocks are a bit unsteady on their feet.
PS. I thought that Faux Fillet was Horse Meat.
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11
November 19, 2009 at 21:20 -
12
November 19, 2009 at 22:14 -
I am notoriously ignorant about these things, Anna.
I would be a vegetarian, but I don’t like hurting carrots.
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13
November 19, 2009 at 23:05 -
You’re right Ed P – British meat is now produced under very strictly monitored regulations regarding animal rearing and animal welfare.
The Dean – spot on about the EU quotas I think, although I do blame the supermarkets for not making a commitment to selling more home-grown produce. The big ones have beaten the High Street butchers, bakers and candlestick makers (and Woolworth’s too) out of existence and they should support our farming industry, such as it is. Since The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries had its name changed to The Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I think it’s pretty obvious how low on the Government’s list of priorities farming as a domestic industry has become.
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14
November 20, 2009 at 00:02 -
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November 20, 2009 at 00:35 -
You’re probably right Anna, it probably is consumer-driven. That’s not to say that the supermarkets couldn’t stock more meat reared in the UK rather than from elsewhere.
There was a 10% drop in the amount of British meat stocked in our supermarkets last year – how can that be justified, especially when everyone’s banging on about food miles and carbon footprints?
I love the idea that Normandy carrots might be regarded as unsuitable and unhealthy for Dordogne children – don’t British children take against most vegetables of their own volition?
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16
November 21, 2009 at 02:32 -
Ed P: sadly I can’t answer your question: the faux Aberdeen Angus doesn’t carry a certificate of origin. Faux-filet is, I think, a sirloin steak rather than an ackowledgement of culinary deception.
As for our bloodstock exports to Europe, am I alone in thinking that former Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and the new High Representative Lady Ashton look as though they come from the same stable?
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17
November 24, 2009 at 20:59 -
Couldn’t eat British, the slaughter methods are too inhumane according to recent reports in the press – complete chaos in the slaughter houses of Blighty.
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