Over the years as our towns grow and the number of small farms shrinks many of us have switched from shopping at traditional butchers to buying all our meat at the supermarket. You’re there already buying all your other essentials so why not, you can’t argue with convenience.

Unfortunately choosing convenience means compromising on quality and price. If you have more time and really care about what you’re eating then buying from a real butcher’s is a must.

Well if you only ever buy packaged up meat in the supermarket then you’re really missing out on rather a lot.

By shopping at a butcher’s or by buying straight from a farm like ours you’ll benefit from:

  • The chance to cook with a wider range of cuts
  • Different cuts may also be cheaper
  • The knowledge of the butcher or farmer
  • Greater access to higher welfare meat and a closer connection to the source of your food.
  • Organic meat means better quality. Did you know that some supermarket chicken breasts have an extremely high water content?

In our mission to get more people thinking about where their food comes from and to cook better we’ve introduced a one day craft butchery course.

What will you do on the course?

We want to offer a broad overview of farming and butchery during the course.

Learn about our farm

You’ll start by learning about our farming practices. You’ll meet Denise and Chris (our Managing Partners) who will discuss the lifecycle of our animals including husbandry and feeding and then give you an insight into our environmental efforts.

Peelham Farm is an organic farm registered with the Scottish Organic Producers Association. This means we follow organic best practices that produce healthy animals and farms in the most environmentally balanced way we can to preserve the land on and around the farm.

Learn butchery skills

Now for the hands-on part of the course. Lots of people these days get a little bit squeamish about handling raw meat. This could be because of tendency to buy from supermarkets where we’re completely removed from what we eat and the animal it came from. We want to remind people of where their food comes from and give them a chance to participate in the butchery and preparation of foods they’ll recognise.

The course will cover:

  • How to cut up a lamb and a pig. You’ll start with a whole animal and we’ll teach you how to remove specific cuts and show you how every part of the animal can be used.
  • How to cure meat (specifically pork). You’ll cut and cure pork to make gammon, bacon, prosciutto and salami.
  • How to make sausages. Sausages have had many controversies over the years, chiefly revolving around their meat content or lack thereof. This is a chance to see exactly what goes into our sausages (80% or 100% meat) and how they’re formed.

You’ll get to take your sausages home at the day along with a party bag of burgers too.

To book call us on 01890 781 328 or use our contact form. We look forward to seeing you soon!