A ‘traditional’ Christmas: why tradition tastes better

While for some, Christmas only begins in December (or late November for the especially eager few)— for us, the festivities begin the moment summer draws to a close. We’ve spent the last few months finalising our Christmas range and are always looking for ways to improve and increase quality for the most important meal of the year!

This Christmas, we decided to go back to our roots and bring you more traditional and heritage breeds (plus our beef has been going down very well!). We firmly believe traditional and heritage breeds win through on quality every time and they taste better.

But Why?

There are several factors:

1. Time

Most importantly if you’re rearing a traditional or heritage breed you are likely rearing them using extensive or regenerative farming methods. This means you can slow rear livestock by giving time and space to grow at a natural rate.

2. Fat

With time, space and the right diet, traditional and heritage breeds can ensure they lay down higher levels of intramuscular fat to avoid lean, bland tasting meat. Fat = flavour.

3. Ageing

In the case of our Bronze turkeys, higher levels of fat also allow them to be dry aged to develop flavour (just like we do with our beef). The added benefit of this is that they also cook far more quickly than a standard turkey as the higher fat content helps to cook the meat quicker (so you can leave the turkey baster in the drawer). Last Christmas my Bronze turkey cooked in under 2 hours which seems to catch me out every year!

4. Farmers

We work with some of the best in the country. Generations of knowledge, countryside stewardship and hands on husbandry delivering the highest welfare cannot always be measured but are of equal importance in producing the best quality product.

All of these factors make up the recipe for great tasting meat. We often hear from our customers that our meat tastes like ‘it used to’ or ‘brings memories from childhood’. This is no coincidence when considering our focus on heritage and traditional breeds. John at Frenchbeer Farm is supplying us again this Christmas. His free-range traditional breed Bronze turkeys are a great example of time, fat, ageing, and farming knowledge coming together to deliver a stunning Christmas dinner..

Whether it’s our Belted Galloway beef, slow grown chicken, waxed duck or free-range turkey, you can be assured we’re following a recipe to deliver quality traditional breeds to your table this Christmas.