£50 for a leg of Lamb - ????

Looking for a new recipe for lamb gigot chops I found this link for a a meat supplier.
I buy at the top of the range in the hope that the price gives the animal a good life. I would rather eat meat twice a week because that is what I can afford than everyday for an animal that had a miserable existence.
But £50 for a leg of lamb !!!
I think they are having a joke - who can afford that ?
My butcher charges around £20 for best quality, humanely reared and killed leg of lamb - and I think that's expensive meat.
The first time I ever bought lamb for the freezer the whole animal cost me £8.
But I think that was 1975.
What think you ?
http://www.glenlyongourmet.co.uk/Lamb-Leg-p/lmbst001.htm

 

I'm sure the lamb thinks its worth much more than that.

 

That sounds horrendous, Alice.

I am not a vegetarian but am not a big meat eater either ... mince for chillis, bolognese, cottage pie, etc. I do have my occasional Sunday beef roast (American pot roast style) with all the trimmings. I do like lamb here as the Portuguese do the most wonderful slow roast casseroles that are to die for whereas I would not eat such in the UK. I would never pay that kind of money for meat. s00k

 

A rip off up our longest glen Alice! I can't believe the prices they charge for venison.
We bought a whole pedigree, rare breed lamb carcass about 10 years ago, butchered it ourselves and it cost about £35.

 

You're right Pete . But the only penny the lamb gets is in the quality of its life before slaughter. And I don't think that quality and price goes into a leg.

 

A local supplier up here (about 10 miles from that farm) does a whole lamb for the freezer for £100 complete.

Even worse is that £50 INCLUDES the bone (which must be a large part of the weight too) ... but bear in mind these sheep are massaged everyday by Tibetan Monks who use lavender oil from a small greenhouse located on the summit of Everest and which has to be brought down the mountain by Sherpa's each day of the way to keep its freshness ... so well worth it !!! :lollol::lollol::lollol::lollol::lollol::lollol::lollol:

 

You've got it so right Martin :thght:

 

The quality of the meat in big superstores in our opinion is poor and the prices ridiculous. All their meat is processed centrally and the guy that looks like a "butcher" in the store is likely to be just a "box opener."

Unfortunately, we've no local butcher who slaughters and dresses his own products.

It isn't cheap, but the quality is good and you can choose exactly what you want from sites like this.

http://www.donaldrussell.com/Default.asp?&cookie%5Ftest=1


My wife telephones an order once a month or so.


She orders all sorts of pies, but less frequently, from here.

http://www.limetreepantry.com/shop/


There's also a firm with which she occasionally places an order that just does sausages, the name of which escapes me(the firm not the sausages).

Everything is delivered overnight from thesecompanies in insulated containers.

 

I'm just wondering if Lambs do actually have varying qualities of life.
I see them in the fields around here in the spring and summer, they presumably get the chop later in the year before they can actually get to put any actual fat on and become real sheep.

I'm probably wrong, but I thought Lamb was the one kind of meat that was actually reared in natural conditions, ie. roaming in a field.

The ones I feel sorry for are the ones that are taken from the fields, put onto trucks and transported to S. Europe, in horrendous conditions, where they get bought by some nasty little *** , tied up in some dirty yard, force fed and get their throats slit by religious nutters.

 

I think you answered your own question Pete.
Yes, I think the quality of life bit is in the field to local abattoir bit and not transported somewhere around the world.
And some of the price is in the fact that it is lamb and not fatty mutton.

 

I love fatty mutton ... a hot mutton sandwich on homemade buttered bread .. CANNOT BE BEATEN .. (if you are a meat eater of course and me ! :lollol

 

I love mutton too Martin - but I wouldn't pay lamb prices for it:wink: