Not everyone has the possibility of keeping animals other than possibly a couple of chickens. When you only have a couple you are likely to treat them as pets and find it hard to kill them for meat. No one likes the act of killing an animal but if you eat meat then I feel it is important to utilise every aspect of the animal. It has often been said that the only part of the pig you cannot eat is the squeal.
I was brought up in the UK and have spent a year in Poland both countries where eating offal is commonplace. However for the past 5 years I have not been able to find a source of pigs liver, in my opinion i is way superior in texture and flavour to either lambs or cows. Even asking for special order at many butchers I was told that it is never able to be released from the abbatoir.
Well finally I have found a place, a chinese butchers at Church corner. There you can get all the bits of the pig your heart could desire; including if you would want it - pigs balls, tails and think penis. Their meat is very fresh, the liver I bought was incredibly fresh (and having gutted a goat, believe me I know what fresh liver is).
I would recommend that people try and change their attitude towards nose to tail eating. A good book is one written by Hugh Fernly-Whittingstall of River Cottage fame. Simply called "Meat Book"
Anyone interested in posting up their favourite recipes for lesser used parts of the animal?
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I am interested, but I like to make sure the good origin of the animal. free range, pasture feed, organic if it is possible, etc. How is the meat quality in the chinese butcher?
Cheeks (cow, pork), pork tail, ears and feet (baby pork) liver and hearth!
Another good book and restaurant reference is from St. John: http://www.stjohnrestaurant.com/
I also bought a belly pork joint whilst I was there (something else which is hard to find here and usually expensive). The meat smelt fresh, looked fresh, good proportions of fat to meat. It cooked well and tasted delicious, no hint of stale meat that you can often get with stuff from the supermarket and definitely no slightly irridesent quality that you get with stale pork. The shop is exceptionally clean and no hint of a smell of old meat.
I doubt it would be organically raised as no doubt it would have been labelled as that if it were. I have not problem with pork in NZ as all the pig farms I have come accross rear their animals outside on grass with lots of shelter and shade.