Celebration Beef For The Biggest And Best Of Times

Farming and livestock writer Chris Berry, brings beef to the festive feast.

It's December and we all know what that means. While 'tis the season to be jolly, although cold inclement weather and shortened daylight hours attempt to give balance to our raging passion for partying and conviviality, there are also the unholy triumvirate of stress, time limitations to get everything just so and well, quite honestly even more stress, but Farmison & Co makes one element of your planning much easier.

Free range, heritage celebration turkey, goose, duck, lamb and beef reared naturally by animal husbandry experts on farms throughout the north of England, Scotland and Wales have been studiously selected so that every customer can woo and wow family and friends with taste sensations not just at Yuletide but throughout the winter.

Everyone knows that turkey is by far and away the most popular meat eaten throughout the UK on Christmas Day and the powerful majestic flavour of goose has risen in popularity in recent years but beef remains immensely popular throughout the festive feast.

Farmison & Co's unique heritage celebration beef extra matured from the countryside's fabulous rare breeds will excite those taste buds and entice merry mouth-watering moments on the palate - and your decks of bows and holly across the Christmas table will be adorned with nutritiously satisfied, smiling recipients who shall abound with questions over where you have sourced such festive flavours.

Christmas is now Blue Grey (not red and white)…and black, black and white and roan.

When Farmison & Co founders John Pallagi and Lee Simmonds began their quest to supply only what they believed to be the best native heritage breeds they made it a strict policy to source naturally grown animals that produce ample marbling and a depth of flavour that can only be achieved through maturity and the cattle living happy, stress free lives in their home environment.

The Blue Grey, Highland, Dexter, Galloway and Belted Galloway breeds all provide that something different on the plate in the same way that malt whisky varies from each distillery but the produce remains of a superb level throughout.

While the other breeds have sometimes received greater spotlight there is no doubt the Blue Grey is deserving of its moment when the festive star shines upon it and will grace any table.

Derived from the Shorthorn and the Galloway the Blue Grey is a happy marriage of England and Scotland with the traditional native Whitebred Shorthorn male from Cumbria, originally the Cumberland White in the 19^th century, creating the Blue Grey through crossing with the Galloway cow from its home county in Scotland. The cattle are hardy, thrifty and fabulous on conservation grazed hill pastures. They lead long, contented lives well away in the outdoors feeding well on natural grasses and shrubs. The Blue Grey is so called because of the blue roan colour developed from the two breeds.

Celebration Beef such as the Blue Grey has been so-titled by Farmison & Co to celebrate the UK's breeds that have long led the world in producing rich tasting, deep marbled produce intensified by correctly hanging the beef that allows for moisture to be replaced by a darker meat and much more flavoursome experience.

'We are delighted that Blue Grey beef is part of our tremendous team of heritage beef breeds,' says John Pallagi. 'Extra matured rare breed beef has an exquisite taste that is now in demand from chefs and restaurants around the world. We believe in bringing our customers absolutely the best quality beef we possibly can and if you try it at Christmas I guarantee you won't want to wait another 365 days before you try it again.'

Celebration beef…since 1731

The UK's signature national dish, forgetting Christmas Day, has been roast beef for over three centuries. We know this because 1731 is the year Henry Fielding, whose most famous work is the novel Tom Jones, had his Grub Street Opera, a satire on popular journalism's hack writing published and performed and within it was his song The Roast Beef of Old England whose first verse is:

When mighty Roast Beef was the Englishman's food It enabled our veins and enriched our blood Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good Oh! The Roast Beef of Old England And Old English Roast Beef!

The song was used as almost a national anthem in theatres for many years and it is still used by the Royal Navy and the US Marine Corps. Fielding is also attributed to have written a work titled The Golden Rump!

Celebrating native breeds and now guest breeds from around the world.