Lent 7

What I want to discuss today predates our lenten observance but I think it is related.  For a while now, we have been trying to pay more attention to where our meat comes from.  As a family we enjoy our meat.  When I was pregnant I think the thing I missed most was parma ham, and on the day I came home from the hospital Jim had prepared for me a platter of meats!  But we are also very aware of the environmental and animal welfare issues associated with mass produced meats.  So we have been trying to resist processed meats and cheap meats of uncertain origins.  


In choosing to buy locally sourced, responsibly farmed, the cost has inevitably gone up.  Not being unduly affluent, this has meant eating meat less frequently.  There are lots of delicious vegetarian foods out there and I like a lot of them.  I will often choose a vegetarian meal in a restaurant because it sounds more appetising and interesting.  Jim has also come around to this way of thinking in the last year.  (He used to say that a meal without meat was only a snack)


All this not withstanding, we were chatting last night after Bella had gone to bed, about the fact that today is payday for me, and the thing we wanted to do to celebrate was to go to the butchers' and buy some lovely meat!  We decided on pork chops and, in honesty, I was thinking about those pork chops for most of the following 24 hours.  They were delicious.  Really delicious.  Nothing fancy, just cooked well with roast potatoes and carrots, some greens and some apple sauce.  But amazingly tasty.  I was imagining how good they would be all morning and afternoon and I have been dwelling on how mouthwateringly scrumptious they were ever since!  We also bought some lovely smokey bacon which I am also looking forward to, perhaps for breakfast.


Good quality meat really is a treat.  I would much rather have amazing meat once or twice a week than the chicken kievs and turkey ham sandwiches we used to eat.  It makes me appreciate it, and it makes me happy to know that the pig has given up his (or her) meat after a happy life.    


I also love the fact that when we go to our butcher we know where the meat is from, and that it is responsibly farmed.  We can trace the steps from the farm to our table.  I'm sure that's technically possible with supermarket meat but it's certainly not as easy.  


So, in conclusion, pork chops are really really really yummy!