Basketcase on trial - what I really feed my family

This piece appeared in The Irish Independent last week. The editor and I felt it was important in the wake of the horsemeat crisis to talk about the ins and outs of buying meat products and a quick guide from the horses mouth so to speak (bahahaha) on what's healthy and risky in terms of processed food is what consumers want right now. 

I feel that telling people only to buy organic or local food is not where its at, or something that most peoples income allows for. My grocery shop for my family of four is a mixture of the two - buying both local and supermarket products, and cooking really simple dishes that don't break the bank. All of us have been rattled by the horsemeat story and are shopping more carefully. A Which? survey in the UK shows substantial loss of confidence in the safety of processed meats. While 9 out of 10 customers felt supermarket food was very safe to eat before the crisis, the number has now dropped to 7 out of 10.Have a look and let me know if your food strategy has changed in the wake of the horsemeat crisis.    

Irish Independent 9th March 2013

Food Writer Suzanne Campbell - "What I really feed my family"

“Are chicken goujons safe to give the kids?” These are the sort of questions mothers ask me, especially since the horsemeat crisis began in January. As a food writer the story didn’t take me by surprise. I live in the countryside and keep horses; one which was destined for a meat plant before I gave it a home.

Over the past weeks I’ve done countless interviews for Irish and European media on the issue and in a bizarre twist, conducted a live radio piece on horse burgers while exercising my own horse. For me, horsemeat was the perfect storm; the under-regulated horse trade exploding into a Pandora’s Box of horrors for consumers. In 2009 I had spelled out these fears in the book “Basketcase: what’s happening to Irish food?” co-authored with my husband – journalist Philip Boucher-Hayes. Then as now, our warnings about the real cost of cheap food fell on deaf ears.

I’m a journalist and the mother of two young children so I also put a family meal on the table every day. Living in the Wicklow hills may be the foodie dream and I go to a lot of swanky food events but our home menu is far from Masterchef. I don’t spend a lot of money on food, I just keep things simple. When people ask me is something safe to eat, I’m honest. There are some foods I just wouldn’t eat and some surprises that I would. 

Spuds, lamb, summer salad, wild garlic pesto. Fairly uncomplicated

You will never see a ready meal in my kitchen. One spaghetti bolognese I examined recently contains just 16% meat. Food “extenders” and “fillers” often make up the rest, adding volume and taste to sausages, burgers, ready meals and any amount of things in our trolleys. The reason? They reduce food manufacturing costs by 10-30%.

I understand why many consumers buy ready meals. As a working mum I often finish my day with cooking the last thing on my mind. I get round this by always having meals in the freezer. When I cook a chilli beef, ratatouille, curry, Irish stew etc I make twice the amount and freeze a complete meal. This is the key to avoiding take-away on the way home from work or dropping into the supermarket in a flap and coming out with a huge bill and still nothing for dinner.

Goujons - do they have a texture like jelly?

The aforementioned chicken goujons I simply don’t buy or eat. I peeled open a chicken goujon last week that looked like MRM (Mechanically Recovered Meat). MRM has a texture like sponge. It is not allowed at present in European food manufacturing but businesses get around the law by using the “Bader process” to make virtually the same thing – meat recovered from sinews and scraps from carcasses.

The safety issue for me is what’s used to congeal these bits of meat back into a palatable foodstuff. I don’t eat anything “re-constituted” that doesn’t have muscle texture, including turkeys or chickens at carvery counters that look like footballs.

After our RTE documentary “What’s Ireland Eating” aired many people approached myself and Philip with fears about ham. We showed a process where ham joints were boosted to a huge size by hundreds of needles pushing water and nitrates into the flesh. Processed meats, including hams and salamis have been linked to colonic cancer. Imported rashers and ham has higher nitrite levels (up to 20%) than are allowed in Ireland so I always buy ham with Bord Bia quality assured label.

Billy Roll - I don't go near it

Look for ham (even packed slices of ham) cut from the bone where you can see muscle grain. Likewise, jelly-textured cubed chicken found in sandwich bars, and deli counters. Even if it’s covered in a heavy “Cajun” or “Tikka” dressing; most of this chicken comes already processed from Thailand or Brazil and rarely made from fresh Irish chicken.

Ireland imports 2.5 million chicken breasts a week. Many of these have been found by the FSAI to be gas-flushed with CO2 to preserve them, on sale with incorrect use-by dates and could be up to ten days old from as far away as the Ukraine. Butchers are my first choice for buying beef but I don’t buy chicken in some butchers as many imported chicken fillets are sold loose on their counters. At the very least this chicken is stale. I only buy chicken fillets if they are Bord Bia certified (in supermarkets), free-range or if I’m flush, organic. 

This carrot and parsley soup takes about 20 mins to make

In our house meat is not a central part in every meal. I make a soup (curried carrot and parsnip, leek and potato) about twice a week, and yes, I add cream. This could be a dinner in my house. As is also scrambled eggs with tomato and basil, simple spaghetti with Irish mushrooms and pesto, cous cous or quinoa salad with mixed leaves, chopped peppers, cumin, olives and salami.

We’ve one child who is a great eater, the other one is more tricky. I adopt the French approach with children; mealtime choice is - menu A or menu A. Research show some foods like lettuce have to be offered up to 21 times before they are eaten; I put it in lunchtime sandwiches, it gets picked out. Then one day it isn’t picked out and eaten from then on. So don’t give up.

For my food shop I buy meat and vegetables from shops in my local village, spending about thirty euro a week in each. I buy store cupboard foods in one big shop about every three weeks in either Superquinn or Aldi. I know many Irish farmers who produce own brand product for Aldi. I also buy a lot of their imported foods like kidney beans, tinned tomatoes, chick peas, chillies, herbs and spices. Choose what has the least added ingredients and cooks well.

Remember, the more players involved in a single food product, the more likely it is to go wrong. Yearly I buy half a lamb from my neighbour butchered into joints ready to cook or freeze. At the weekend I buy sourdough bread, Kilbeggan porridge oats, Ed Hick’s rashers and eggs from the local farm shop.

My family food spend is under 150 euro a week, not counting wine or craft beer which I splurge on now and again. If I wasn’t partial to French wines and Irish cheese I would probably be the most healthy person on the planet.

So what can we do to eat safely and not pay out a fortune? Keep your food chain short and keep things simple. It takes work but shouldn’t break the bank. I dislike patronising advice to consumers to only buy organic or local. Find a place on the food and cooking scale you are comfortable with. Ditch Masterchef, take the pressure off yourself and cook with freshness to get taste.

Six foods I wouldn’t eat

Chicken goujons

Billy roll or any ham with a clowns face on it

Huge glossy chicken fillets in independent retailers or butchers often sold at discount

Chicken in a restaurant or sandwich bar – unless stated on the menu it is imported

Breaded fish including salmon, I stay away from farmed salmon and buy wild smoked salmon as an occasional treat

Brightly coloured snacks or crisps. McDonnell’s and Keoghs are pretty additive free.

My unexpected favourites –

Aldi’s Duneen natural yoghurt; I use it with everything; blitz with fruit for summer smoothies

Burgers – cook your own from mince or buy Aldi’s Aberdeen Angus 100% Irish beef; red meat is the best way to get iron into your system

Beans (without sugar) – unglamorous but a nutritious two minute meal heated on crusty bread

Smoked mackerel or herring costs about three euro a pack. Smashed up with crème fraiche and rocket makes a gorgeous topping on toast. Goatsbridge trout is so good eat it on its own.

Sodastream – invest in one. I drink two litres of sparkling water a day. Saved me a huge amount of cash and recycling of water bottles.

What exactly is a Christmas ham and what's the best way to cook it?

Wet sloppy nightmare or artisan luxury bliss. If you plan to buy a Christmas ham this year here's a few pointers

Firstly what exactly is a ham?

A ham is hind leg of a pig from the femur to the hock. The word gammon derives from the Old Northern French word jambe for hind-leg, and gammon may also be used to refer to a ham or bacon. The depth of meat to the bone is greatest at the top of the hind limb; cutting this piece away from the bone and curing it separately does the job thoroughly and easily. This cut is the original and to this extent authentic form of gammon, though the name is often applied to any round ham steak. Gammon is usually smoked.

What is a free range ham?

Organic ham implies that the pigs are reared in a free range way but there are also many free range producers who don’t feed organic feed and therefore just sell “Free range” pork. New guidelines have been drawn up between the Irish free range producers pig group and Bord Bia and a mark will soon be available to consumers. The prices for free range will generally be higher but believe me, it does taste more flavoursome.

So you’re out rushing around for your Christmas food shop. Why is it important to look at where the ham is from?

Finely sliced ham

Imported European hams have more water and nitrite content allowed. Dutch processors can put up to 17% brine into their meat but only about 10% is allowable here. So an imported ham or packet of rashers that cook down to half their size mightn’t be worth the cheaper price on the supermarket shelf. In the USA a new study in the US found 69 percent of raw pork samples tested positive for yersina a lesser known but serious foodborne pathogen. Countries with less strict food regimes than ours are not worth buying cheap meat from.  

What goes into a ham?

Wet-cured bacon is prepared by immersing sides of bacon in brine or by injecting brine into the meat. It’s popular with manufacturers as it’s a faster and cheaper way to cure, but it has downsides for flavour. The final product is allowed to have up to 10% brine by weight, leading to shrinking on the pan. When you see a white liquid come from your rashers, that’s the brine and is a sign they have been wet cured.

You should be able see the grain of the muscle 

By contrast, dry-cured bacon is rubbed with a mixture of salt and sugar in various proportions and they are given time to cure the meat, taking about 7 days. Some producers will say there really is no such thing as nitrate free ham has pork can only be cured with nitrate. (Some use dried celery extract which has high concentrations of nitrate).  It’s a slower and more labour intensive process but it results in a drier finish and fuller, more pronounced flavour. This is the way meat was cured prior to it becoming an industrial process. You’ll benefit not just from a much better taste, but because there will be less shrinkage during cooking and it is easier to get a nice crisp result.

What’s the best way to cook it?

Choose the right sized ham e.g. a 4kg fillet of ham will feed 10 people and allows a little extra if your family like to help themselves to more on Christmas night. Never!!

Cook the ham on Christmas eve – it takes the pressure off the next day

Weigh the ham and put in a pot with half water and pure apple juice if you have it or a bay leaf, bouquet garni, orange peel or cider

Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes per pound. Some people change this water or soak the ham then fully roast it. If its dry cured it doesn’t need soaking.

Honey and spice glazed ham

Next day, remove skin and score the meat crossways with a sharp knife. Apply your preferred glaze. Honey, mixed spices with cinnamon and cardamon is one of my favourites. A lot of people will put cloves in the ham, a jerk or Caribbean glaze is gorgeous but seriously hot.

You can warm the ham before putting on the glaze. Apply the glaze and put it back in the oven for another 20/30 minutes. (This can all be done while your turkey is resting.)

Do not throw the cooking water out. It can be used to keep the ham moist when roasting in the oven. 

All important - what price should you pay?

Supermarkets –

Lidl have hams from 4.99 a kilo to 7.99 a kilo a gammon and a loin, Irish produced

Dunnes stores cooked ham 4 kilos Bord Bia 50 euro (12.50 a kilo)

Dunnes Stores Dry cured Irish gammon joint 1.9 kilos 19.99 euro

Free range/small producers

www.crowesfarm.ie - outdoor reared dry cure hams and organic dry cure hams, both boneless.

Their Outdoor Reared hams are €9 per kg and the organic are €12.99 per Kg.

Can courier direct to your door, final courier delivery day for Christmas is Dec 22nd and courier is free for orders over €100, below that it's €10..

www.Termonfeckindelicious.ie (I so love that name) – dry cured 13lb (nearly 6 kilos) boneless ham 45 euro. Whole ham on the bone 40 euroBottom of Form

www.Jack McCarthy.ie award winning Kanturk butcher 4 kilos free range boned –

34 euro

www.oldfarm.ie  €14.50 per kg, free-range, gmo free, natural brine cure.  Delivered to your door!

Here's a link to a radio piece I did with Pat Kenny this week on ham (its an hour and 6 mins into the show) and whatever you do, eat plenty of ham this Christmas. 

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/todaywithpatkenny/2012-12-06.html