MARCH2006, Northumberland Now columnist Richard Sim visits another of his suppliers, farmer Steve Ramshaw, of Northumbria Quality Meats, near Otterburn, and cooks up a couple of treats with Steve's beef. He also takes us on the next part of his journey to the top of the tree in his career.
"If a customer ever had to use a stake knife to cut my organic meat, then I'm in the wrong job!"
Farmer Steve Ramshaw launched Northumbran Quality Meats near Otterburn a decade ago, and has since been recieving accolades for his organic beef and la
mb from household names like Jamie Oliver, Rick Stein, Anthony Worrell-Thompson, and Riverside Cafe guru, Hugh Fernly-Wittingstall.
Steve will be the first to tell you it was a pioneering gamble when he started rearing Aberdeen Angus cattle. He explained: "No one else was doing organic then and we were being tarred as hippies with beards and sandals! But to survive in this business our passion told us to go for healthy, natural quality that eats well, even if it costs more.
"Ten years later we have built a strong following and won national awards for our produce. Our farming methods aren't dissimilar to traditional ways used before the Second World War when no chemicals or artificial imputs were used and there was little risk of polluting the environment or the livestock.
"If you'd told me back then our organic beef would take off so fast, I'd have laughed. But things change, the public has lost trust in factory farm imported produce with recent food scares and diseases. They want to know now where there food is coming from, how it has been reared and treated and essentially what they are eating.
"Still, the biggest challenge for us has been to re-educate the public to what high quality beef should taste and look like. If your steak tastes like a block of wood and you eat it for long enough, then you start thinking this is what all meat tastes like! Sadly, the supermarket control over produce has meant people have lost touch with what is good beaf, but changes are happening.
"So I would take it as a personal insult if I had to use a razor-sharp knife to cut the beef on my plate. That's why the region's top chefs like Terry Laybourne of Cafe 21 and Richard Sim of The Treehouse are great barometers for our quality. Believe me, it's expensive produce, so they would be the first to tell us if it ever slipped under par.
"Terry and Richard told me once that 90 per cent of good cooking is the ingredients and our Dark Red Aberdeen Angus is as good as you can get.
"The great taste comes from natural methods of using quality grass feed and silage, that has natural clover content giving fuller beefy flavour to the meat.
"People these days think that lean meat is better and healthier. But good fat content is essential for flavour and keeping meat moist while cooking. This message is now getting across to customers via top kitchens like The Treehouse," said Steve.
"Our animals are always put first from when they are born, and every act of husbandry is addressed from housing to diet so that we have happy cattle with total accountability to me and tractability for the customer."
He adds: "My version is to produce the best meat in the country. I have never been a sales person in my life, but this taste sells itself. It is the ultimate Rolls Royce of beef from our hill top to the table top!"
