CONNOISSEUR:Light, quick to cook, and with little fat, veal is a meat made for our health-obsessed times, writes
HUGO ARNOLD.
WE DRINK MILK by the bucket load, ladle cream at will and spoon yoghurt plain, with fruit or laced with honey at the first chance. And that is before you consider our consumption of butter. Real butter that is, not a tub of whisked vegetable-oil gloop. And just think of our cheese industry. From artisan to industrial cheeses, we are known the world over. We have a dairy industry to be proud of, and countryside decorated with all those pretty cows munching on God-given grass.
So why do we not eat veal? Light, easy and quick to cook, and with little fat, it is a meat made for our health-obsessed times. A grilled veal chop finished with a blue-cheese butter may scotch the healthy intentions, but boy is it good.
The Italians stew veal with white wine and tomatoes to make something which is altogether warming, but with a light touch. Veal Milanese, where the lightly battered escalope is then breadcrumbed and fried to a crisp and enjoyed with nothing more than a wedge of lemon (or spaghetti with tomato sauce if you really want to be retro) is stunningly good in its simplicity. (Bentley’s on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin do a version that is worth sampling.)
We don’t eat veal because we think it is cruel. Cruel to eat something that is six months old? Why is a calf different from a lamb, or a pig for that matter. Cruel because of the restricted movement imposed on the animals in other countries? There is no need for this.
In the UK, the crating of veal has been outlawed for 19 years and they have seen a slow but steady growth in what is termed rose veal. These animals are left free to roam, suckle from their mothers and then briefly move on to graze. This makes the resulting meat slightly darker and slightly chewier than their confined cousins, but it’s a small price to pay for decent animal welfare.
The biggest problem with veal is getting hold of any. What you can buy is certainly not Irish, but likely to be Dutch, which raises all the problems associated with that country’s production practices. Meanwhile, we export thousands of live animals (200,000 in 2007, the last year for which figures are available), almost all of which head for Europe. It is thought some 60,000 of these are destined for veal production.
Male calves are an inherent part of the breeding process and while we rush to move their female counterparts into milk production, we are “stuck” with the males. It’s a reality too few seem eager to appreciate.
Any country that has a dairy industry should also have a veal industry. We used to. What was termed “baby beef” was our version, but the appetite for young animals, somewhere between six-month-old veal and a so-called mature animal at 18 months (our current preferred kill age) has evaporated.
Why this is so is a puzzle. We are vast consumers of chicken, a great deal of which is light, relatively tasteless and fat-free. If chicken, then why not veal?
We are missing a trick here, with farm incomes in free-fall, animals there for the eating, a production cycle that is mercifully short and a country keen to eat meat. Why are we not feasting on the glories of ossobuco made from young Irish beef, whole loin poached in herbs and butter, cutlets pan-roasted with garlic, rosemary and white wine? These may be Italian dishes but we have the raw materials. Or at least we should have.