Offal - why are less-desirable cuts of meat more expensive?

[Acathater]

There was a tripeworks in the town centre in Padiham, Lancashire. It closed around 1997, but the reek was still there ten years later. Awful

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Yesterday at 13:57 ==

I asked him how did he make money, firstly he didnt pay for the bones/bit of animals and at the end of the day we would throw them in skip and someone would pick them up, this would be used for fuel, plastics and I am sure he said perfumes.

The bones and bits would be rendered down using heat and steam to produce fat, gelatin and glycerine.
The solid remains would be powdered and sold as bonemeal or blood & bone as fertiliser or animal feed supplements

 

[Sun Chariot]

The bones and bits would be rendered down using heat and steam to produce fat, gelatin and glycerine.
The solid remains would be powdered and sold as bonemeal or blood & bone as fertiliser or animal feed supplements

I am sure one such works was near the Tate & Lyle plant at Silvertown (near Canning Town, London's Royal Docks).
On a good day, the smell of refining sugar wafted along to the Thames Flood Barrier.
On a not-good day, the stench of carcasses being rendered-down, hung in the same air...

 

[philthetube]

We had creative cooks at my school, one of the dishes served was braised ox heart.

Banned since BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy)

 

[styles]

We had creative cooks at my school, one of the dishes served was braised ox heart.

Banned since BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy)

Not sure about cooking them, but our biology teacher did put in a large order of pigs hearts so we could do some practical anatomy!

There was some fainting and additional toilet trips that lesson. See also: the video where we watched injections happening.

 

[johnnychips]

Whatever happened to the UCP shops?
.

My Auntie Elsie always said, ‘If UCP on tripe, don’t eat it.’

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Whatever happened to the UCP shops?

Closed maybe 50+ years ago? Essentially a product of their time.

 

[cin88]

I'm quite partial to heart, both lamb and ox, apart from around mid way through a 6 week period one mid 00s summer where my mother got a job lot of ox hearts for a very good price and it became Sunday dinner every week. We were all sick of it for a while after that. I find that it makes a fantastic sandwich meat. I recently lamented to my parents that i'd not had roasted heart for years and got a barrage of complaining about the price for my trouble

I used to quite like pigs kidneys as a child but went off them after unknowingly copping a bad one that made me quite ill on the same evening. I can tolerate it in steak & kidney pie (on account of it being my favourite) but can't stomach them otherwise.

The Delia effect seems to apply to most cuts of meat and fish products, in the sense that as soon as a celebrity chef gets their hands on it on the television then you've had it as the price is going to fly up in response to a sudden (however short lived) increase in demand.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Closed maybe 50+ years ago? Essentially a product of their time.

What I thought was interesting was that, from the outside, they looked very stylish and modern. The fascia was shiny self coloured material in paste shades with stainless steel trim. No hint of what they sold - no window display as far as I can recall, just the three initial letters in stainless steel. Could have been bookmakers!

But you're right - the last one I can remember seeing was in Wigan in 1971, somewhere between North Western. and the bus stands (??? bus station).

Time flies when you're old...

 

[Spamcan81]

When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, mum bought a lot of offal because it was cheap. Liver, kidneys, tongue and heart. Still have a taste for it if you can find it. Local butcher does have liver and kidneys from time to time and can get heart sometimes. Local Morrisons usually has tongue on its deli counter.

 

[GusB]

I used to quite like pigs kidneys as a child but went off them after unknowingly copping a bad one that made me quite ill on the same evening. I can tolerate it in steak & kidney pie (on account of it being my favourite) but can't stomach them otherwise.

I haven't seen kidney in the shops for quite a while, but then again I don't often look for it. One day I saw a big pack of braising steak that was reduced to clear and though that it'd be nice to get some kidney to go with it but I couldn't find any. That was in Aldi, and kidney doesn't seem to be listed on its website.

It would seem that Asda and Tesco stock it, though, so a trip to the latter may be in order soon. I'm very partial to a steak and kidney pie!

I enjoy liver too, and fortunately it still seems to be selling at a fairly reasonable price while the cost of everything else in the meat section seems to have rocketed.