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Grow Your Own!
Become part of the solution rather than part of the problem . . .
Supermarkets offer 'cheap food' at thirteen times less than the relative price in 1862 but at what cost to the animal, biodiversity or farmer and at what cost to taste and your health?
Based on Slow Food principles Squisito can comission one of our panel of local breeders to rear you an animal which we have butchered locally when ready. The Squisito way gives you food that is good, clean and fair in the wider sense of the words. We call it 'Conservation Through Consumption'.
You pay a deposit to cover the feed - one of the two big costs and disincentives to growing rare breeds - and Squisito pay the farmer as the animal matures so the farmers receive a good price and cashflow to meet their costs in the knowledge that they will not have to 'offload' their animal to a butcher or supermarket at marginal prices.
 
Supermarkets and industry treat animals and meat as a 'commodity' so the
pressure on price comes out in animal welfare and meat quality.
The
first cost this takes is in biodoversity since supermarket animals are
bred to fit supermarket packaging and to have resistance to stress that
long journeys to abttators entails. Often supermarket meat is bred or
reared abroad and the animal only spends a short time in the UK before
being sent to slaughter so that it can be sold as 'British Meat' when
the only thing about it is that the animal was 'finished' here.
The true cost is to British agriculture and
biodiversity - Nature's rampart against disease and inbreeding and yours against boredom and sameness - and clogging up British motoways with lorry traffic (Government figures show that 90% of all lorry traffic on British motorways is food or food industry related).
By
buying local and buying rare breeds you can stop the clock on
agroindsutrialisation but also buy meat at a fair price to you and the farmer. By 'buying' a
whole animal and paying for it's upkeep in low intensive farms, often by
smallholders and keen amateur breeders with just a few animals, you do
not pay the high price of just buying and packaging particular cuts or adding to supermarket profits. You
also get the benefit of variety and stocking your freezer or
friends tables!
So 'What do I do with a whole or 1/4 animal' you ask?
Just what every family and
your great grandparents did - portion your meat up and preserve the rest for
the Winter and Spring or share it around your family and friends. Preserving for most people means the deep freeze but this is just one option.
At this point Squisito can offer you a traditional skill so you can turn back
the clock by learning how to make your own sausages and preserving meat
by curing, smoking and making preserved meats like paté or rillettes - now only
seen here in expensive pots usually seen at Selfridges or Harrods. All
you need is a little tuition and a little guided practice and you can
take your skill as a charcutiere home to make your own and pass it on to your friends an
family.
Squisito run monthly courses run by qualified teachers in Further Education (that's us!) on a Sunday and odd weekdays to suit your work days so you or you family can come along and learn a skill from the voice of experience.
Squisito Artisan Sausage Making at Home or Artisan Curing & Smoking at Home is great if you have dietary requirements since you can make to suit yourself. You can say no to salty bacon and tasteless sausages forever. At today's prices you can make a side of bacon or a freezer basket full of various sausages or homemade bacon for less than £4.50 per kilo in good conscience! And if you want to go the whole hog, why not learn to make salami?
To join the 'New Agricultural Revolution' and call time out on commercial exploitation and do something to secure the future of English native breeds call Squisito.
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