At last, an app to help you plan and have fun with one of the world’s greatest birthday parties. Going to an event this year? Find out what to expect, or learn something new. Better yet, why not plan your own wee birthday party in honour of Rabbie, one of history’s great partiers?

The app, produced by Spot Specific, and made super-stylish by Scott Smyth’s design, is now available from iTunes and live on the Android Market. So what are you waiting for? Download it and explore it for yourself! Thousands have already, thanks to iTunes featuring it on their New & Noteworthy picks the best new Lifestyle apps.
A stirring performance by Alasdair MacRae brings Tam o’ Shanter to life, and you can use the autocue to follow his lead and work on your own delivery without worrying about forgetting the lines or losing your place. Top singers Karine Polwart, Corrina Hewat and Annie Grace have treated us to some of their acclaimed Burns arrangements, and the built-in compass points you to Robert Burns’s birthplace, allowing you to salute him when raising your glasses to his Immortal Memory.

Learn all you ever wanted to know about Auld Lang Syne (including some of its more esoteric translations – Klingon for example), find out what it all means and cook up a storm with Burns Supper recipes.

So even if you have already had your Burns Night Supper for this year take a look and be all set up for next time.

Charlie the butcher

This year has been a bit milder some we are hoping for a better supply from the highlands but it hasn’t always been that way ….

This once popular sport amongst the nobility and gentry of Britain and Europe reached its peak in the early 1920s with gentlemen converging on the stately homes of the North Yorkshire Moors from all around Europe during haggis hunting season.  Back in those days, when large haggis herds roamed the Moors in abundance, a hunt would last for several days, with literally dozens of haggis being shot (or hagged in hunting parlance) in just one session.

A good days work

A typical haggis hunting session would consist of the beaters, or haggillies to give them their correct name, taking their haggis hounds, an all but forgotten breed of specialised hunting dog, onto the Moors and herding the haggis towards the carefully positioned haggis hides.  In these hides the hunters would wait patiently until the traditional cry of ‘Hag Ho!’ went up from the chief hagilly, at which point they would take up their gun positions and attempt to hag as many of the small but elusive creatures as possible as they stampeded past.

A typical haggis hunting party

In the intervening years between then and now there have been several unconfirmed sightings of haggis around the Moors, but the sad truth is that the haggis were hunted out of existence on the Moors and are now confined to the Highlands of Scotland.

So we have to rely on haggis being rustled across the border …

Haggis smuggling (a reconstruction to protect the identity of the smugglers)

Following my posting last year about Burns Night especially the traditional address to the haggis you might want to take a butchers at this nostalgic clip

Charlie the butcher

This year I’m on my way to Exmouth. With a free-range turkey, a Mrs Kings Pork Pie and plenty of smoked salmon I’m sorted. Wishing you all a wicked Christmas.

Charlie the butcher

It can be a very stressful time especially if you are hosting Christmas lunch for the first time and want to impress – but you don’t always need to get up in the middle of the night to kick the whole the process off.

You might like to look at this app that seems to be getting reasonable reviews ….   at just 69p it might be a life and reputation saver ….

The write up says ….

TurkeyTimer helps you take the guesswork out of Christmas and other holiday cooking. Enter the weight of your turkey, whether it’s stuffed, your desired internal temperature, and whether you plan to baste the turkey. Using algorithms based on top cookbook instructions, TurkeyTimer will track the approximate brownness of your turkey, the approximate internal temperature of your turkey, and about how long it will be until you can take the turkey out of the oven. This handy tool will even remind you when it’s time to baste the turkey!

FEATURES
- Know how soon your turkey will be ready
- Know your turkey’s internal temperature
- Track your turkey’s brownness
- Choose between a moister or a dryer turkey
- Know when it’s time to baste
- Always works, even if you send text messages or make or receive phone calls

With TurkeyTimer, you can be certain that your turkey will be perfect!

It’s a bit Americanised and I’m not sure though about defrosting times as I always say fresh is best – support your local butcher ….

Charlie the butcher

I usually recommend people to look at my old mates at the Good Food Channel where I sometimes pop up.

Click here for some excellent stuffing ideas.

They also have some really great ideas for trimmings here.
Charlie the butcher

It seems that many people are taking the idea more seriously with more people choosing a goose for Christmas – the age-old tradition, natural open-air lifestyle of the goose and succulent flavour are appealing qualities.

Families often choose a goose for the first time – and find that cooking is much easier than they’d realised. There’s also the bonus of goose fat, so cherished by top chefs, for perfect roast potatoes and parsnips.
The British Goose Producers have created a new recipe leaflet available from their producers, farm shops and butchers, or by contacting British Goose Producers.

A recent independent ADAS study on goose meat has found that the real fat content of goose meat today is much lower than the general figures quoted in the traditional nutritional textbooks. Aagain the British Goose Producers have published five helpful hints for cooking and serving goose.

For much more information from the British Goose Producers take a look here.

If all else fails you could follow Gordon Ramsey’s spicey goose recipe.

Charlie the butcher

http://www.meatinfo.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/13424/__Audio:_London_butchers_the_focus_for_BBC_radio.html

Charlie the Butcher.

Perfect, but how to gift wrap it ?

Wilhelm van Berkel, was born in Holland on 5 February 1869, son of a pub owner and brother of a butcher. He was the inventor of a cutting machine with a movable meat table. This way meat products could be cut neatly and regularly Up until that time butchers were kept busy slicing with 16-inch long carving knives.

Van Berkel had worked his way up from a butcher’s boy to become the owner of three successful shops. Then he began the deliberate search for a winning way to slice sausages and other meats mechanically.

This quest took years, often working through the night, ruining costly pieces of meat and starting many times over. During his search he saw the attempts of others who had devised mechanisms for slicing meat. No matter how ingenious these were – with spiral or elliptical knives – they could not be put to any practical purpose at all.

Van Berkel’s search was eventually rewarded. His find was the concave knife and an upper table sliding automatically towards the blade. He succeeded in constructing a prototype which more than proved its worth in his own pork shop.

He realised at once the far-reaching possibilities of his invention. He applied for a patent and immediately began to consider ways of mass producing his slicing machine.

This invention was set to revolutionise the butcher’s trade, where quality of cut and the speed of the slicer were very important.

By 1898, Van Berkel has started production at factories based in Rotterdam, and soon slicers were in demand all over Europe. Master butchers simply could not believe that hand-sliced meat or sausage could be matched or even excelled by a machine !

With his experience in the trade, Van Berkel confidently took to the road to win over all the butchers. He skillfully demonstrated the results that could be achieved with the slicer, and reassured butchers they would be fully employed coping with the increased business generated.

Van Berkel’s foresight and commercial spirit quickly led him to foreign markets. Berkel Ltd was established in London in 1908 and was manufacturing slicers in England for a period after the first World War. In America, Berkel started manufacturing as the U.S. Slicing Machine Co. Inc. in 1909. By 1915, the company had outgrown its facilities in Chicago and moved on to La Porte, Indiana.

Now part of Avery Berkel, slicers and food processing equipment are still sold under the Berkel brand throughout its companies and distribution network.

Van Berkel’s Patent Model A was the first commercially produced slicing machine to come out of the Rotterdam factory in 1898. This somewhat clumsy looking machine is today a museum piece. A hundred years ago it revolutionised the butcher’s trade across Europe, though it was anything but cheap to buy. The price was often more than the total value of the inventory of many a butcher’s business.

After the 1^st  World War Van Berkel also started with the production of balances and related products for the butcher and the Food Industry. Sale offices and factories were built in several  countries, in the United States under the name Slicing machine Co. Inc. and in United Kingdom under the name of Berkel Ltd.

Here’s a clip in which Emilio Mitidieri discusses and demos one of his antique Berkel meat slicers on The History Channel’s “Modern Marvels: Cold Cuts”, from his showroom in San Francisco’s Mission district.

There’s also a super-cool animation here demonstrating how a Berkel works !

Charlie the Butcher

You can click on my ‘game‘ sidebar to get information on some of my favourite recipes and to see how to skin a rabbit, or click on the ‘game calender‘ to see what is about and when.

As well as the flavour and value for money here’s why we should all go wild for game …..

Venison contains about half the calories of a chicken breast per portion and also a third of that in pork or beef loin. It also has one of the highest iron contents of any meat (2.4mg per 100g) – almost twice that of beef and two and a half times spinach.  One portion of venison would provide more than quarter of the recommended daily iron intake.

Rabbit contains a third more protein than chicken, 30g per 100g compared with 21g per 100g. But be careful out there, survival experts talk about ‘rabbit starvation’ to describe the fate that befell those forced to live on only this wild meat which contains virtually no fat at only 10% compared with pork at 45% and turkey at 20%. Without any fat or carbohydrate the body can’t metabolise the protein properly so make sure that you eat it with some lovely potatoes and greens.  Rabbit is also low in salt, 33% lower than chicken, and conatins 2.6g of phosphorus, a third of the RDA and 17mcg of selenium per 100g serving.

Quail is als a good choice if you are watching your fat intake, and again an all round more nutritious choice than chicken. 5g fat per 100g serving compared to 16g for a chicken breast.  It als has good quantities of niacin, iron, phosphorus, selenium and zinc.

Pheasant is one of the richest sources of protein with 41g per 100g serving compared with chicken or turkey (20-30g).  They are also rich in Vitamin B6 with a serving providing 0.74mg, just over a third of the RDA.  It is higher in iron than other fowl and also provides selenium and tryptophan.

Wood Pigeon is high in iron with one serving giving just over a quarter of the RDA,lean beef would give you arund a fifth.  It is also rich in Vitamin B3, niacin.
Charlie the Butcher

Scotland-Inverness

The beautiful highland cattle.

Africa-Morocco

A happy butcher.

France- Somewhere

I always love the range of butchers shop fronts in France. They seem very welcoming to me, I took lots of pictures but wont bore you with them all.

Horse Butcher.

Foie Gras Farm-France

Its been a little while since my last post but I’m back on the blog so keep your eyes open. Bacon Jam etc…….

Charlie the Butcher.