As you like it

Or, to be more precise, as I like it. With the 'it' being beef fore rib - it being hard to get back rib and top rib these days. I have the notion that standing is better, so guyed to stop it falling over. 

The same, cooked. Quite a decent cut, except that the butcher cut through the bones at the right before I thought to stop him. This cutting might be called chining. This beef from Ben's Butchery in Upper High Street, in 2022, as noticed at reference 1.

This one has not been so cut. Good thick blanket of fat.

And cooked. This beef almost certainly from Master Butchers of Manor Green Road (upper previous management), in 2021, as noticed at reference 2. The Pomerol to the left was well enough, but we never made a habit of it. Maybe it does not catch the eye at Waitrose, the place I am most likely to buy such a wine from.

I remember from Florence (memorable) and then from 2Veneti (not bad, but not up to the Florentine version) a long tailed version, served for two in restaurants as a single rib. 

I could not find a picture (search 'beef fore rib'), but at least the tails have been left on, even if the other bones have been cut out. From the butcher at reference 3. English high street butchers often seem all too keen to trim these tails and to cut most if not all of the bones out. 

While this one seems to be more or less entire. Not sure about the yellow fat on top. And not much white fat: a good blanket of the stuff is good. From the farm at reference 4.

This while keeping an eye on batch No.708. Which turned out quite well, despite a worry that I had left the second rise 5 minutes or so too long - which can lead to bubbles or worse in the crust - a reminder that it better to cook while not doing something else - at least not an important something else - at the same time. And despite appearances, the right hand loaf is the same diameter and slightly higher than that on the left. New yeast and new, higher temperature (225°C).

PS 1: I wonder what the slaughtering arrangements are at Haye Farm? My understanding is that current hygiene and animal welfare rules make small scale slaughtering rather expensive.

PS 2: I forget to make a note of the source for the Haye Farm meat snap above. But Google Image Search turned it up in seconds.

PS 3: slightly later. Rather perturbed to read that the US, the UK and others have suspended funding for UNRWA on the grounds that 'several' of its employees were involved in the Hamas attacks in October. UNRWA appears to employ around 30,000 people, mostly Palestinians, 13,000 of them in Gaza, and exists to help Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East. This seems to me to be a disproportionate response to what might be regarded as an HR glitch in an organisation doing a difficult job in a difficult part of the world. Do we stop funding the Metropolitan Police because they turn up some bad apples - and worse? It seems likely that a lot, I dare say most, people in the Middle East will also regard this decision as disproportionate and it will do our (already poor) standing in that part of the world no good at all. Maybe we will get to know a bit more in the days to come. In the meantime there are references 5 and 6.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/09/new-beef.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/06/beef-two.html.

Reference 3: https://www.eastendbutchers.co.uk/product/beef-fore-rib/.

Reference 4: https://www.hayefarmdevon.co.uk/store/p76/ORGANIC_RIB_OF_BEEF.html.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNRWA.

Reference 6: More countries pull funding from UN agency over October 7 attack allegations: Britain, Italy and Finland put support for UNRWA on hold after agency said ‘several’ staff may have participated - Mehul Srivastava, Financial Times - 2024.