MEAT

Butchers

Allens of Mayfair

Allen of Mayfair

Location: 117 Mount Street, W1K 3LA (blue, red)

Website: https://allensofmayfair.wordpress.com

The Ginger Pig

In 2022 The Ginger Pig had eight butchers shops in London.

Location: 61 Church Road, Barnes, SW13 9HH

Borough Market, London Bridge, SE1 1TL

55 Abbeville Road, Clapham, SW4 9JW

99 Lauriston Road, Hackney, E9 7HJ

165a High Road, Loughton, IG10 4LF

8-10 Moxon Street, Marylebone, W1U 4EW (orange, red)

137-138 Askew Road, Shepherd's Bush, W12 9AU

3 Clock House Parade, High Street, Wanstead, E11 2AG

Website: https://thegingerpig.co.uk

C. Lidgate

C. Lidgate is a noted butchers. The business was founded in 1850. Its pasties may well be the best in London and its sausage rolls are good.

Location: 110 Holland Park Avenue, W11 4UA (purple, blue)

Website: www.lidgates.com

Meat N16

Paul Grout - Stoke Newington, Meat NW5, Meat NW6 in

Grouse

The Ritz removed grouse from its menu in 2022. This followed protests by environmental protestors at the way in which animals that predated on the bird were trapped. In addition, peat was damaged when vegetation was burned in order to create environments for the birds to be reared.

Location: 150 Piccadilly, W1J 9BR (orange, blue)

Haggis

Burns Night

Burns Night commemorates the Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796). Haggis is the principal dish that is eaten during the celebratory meal.

Website: www.visitscotland.com/about/famous-scots/burns-night www.scotland.org/events/burns-night

Pudding Lane

The Pudding in Pudding Lane does not refer to afters but rather to animal guts, as in black pudding, there having been a meat market near Eastcheap. Gravity would have helped the offal to slough southwards towards the Thames.

Location: Pudding Lane, EC3R 8AH (orange, yellow)

See Also: STREETS, SPECIALISED; WASTE

Sausages

See Also: LONDON UNDERGROUND Sausages

Website: https://uksausagesweek.com

Bangers

During the Second World War, the meat content of sausages was lowered and the proportion of other items raised. This meant that they became more likely to burst out of their skins while they were being cooked. This led to their being called bangers . People were encouraged to prick the skins of their sausages before cooking them in order to prevent eruptions.

Hot Sausages

See Also: BURGERS

Big Apple Hot Dogs

Big Apple Hot Dogs is a hot dog business that was founded by Abiye Cole. He entered the business by selling sausages from a cart that he parked on Old Street. The enterprise was unsuccessful. A friend who had long experience of the restaurant trade introduced him to the practice of having sliced onions sizzling on a griddle. The smell proved able to attract customers.

Website: https://www.bigapplehotdogs.com

The Shambles

In the Middles Ages butchers occupied an area along the western section of Newgate Street. Their presence informed the name of the church of St Nicholas Shambles. What is now known as King Edward Street was called Butcher Hall Lane.

Location: King Edward Street, EC1A 7BA (red, brown)

Newgate Street, EC1A 7AF (red, grey)

Smithfield Market

Smithfield was an expanse of unmarshy grassland that lay to the west of the City of London's walls between the Barbican and Newgate. Its name is a corruption of smooth field . The land was used for tournaments and fairs.¹ In 1150 Smithfield Market became London's principal horse and cattle market. In 1638 the market received a royal charter. In 1855 its livestock section was moved to Copenhagen Fields, leaving the meat one behind.

Under the auspices of the Metropolitan Meat & Poultry Market Act of 1860, the Corporation of the City of London commissioned Sir Horace Jones to construct a series of market buildings at Smithfield. The design of Central London Meat Market building (1866) was based upon Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace. The architect's redevelopment of the site incorporated a railway spur that connected the Market to the Metropolitan underground line. This enabled cattle trucks to be brought in from the railway stations that were connected to the track.

In 1954 fifteen years of meat rationing ended. Smithfield reverted to its pre-war bustle.

Smithfield Market is the only surviving wholesale market within the City of London's boundaries.

Location: Smithfield Market, West Smithfield, EC1A 9PQ (orange, brown)

Website: www.smithfieldmarket.com

¹. There was a second Smithfield, East Smithfield in Whitechapel.

Alien Meat

In 1995 Ray Santilli, a London-based video distributor, announced to the world that he had bought 91 minutes of film from a retired American military cameraman. He claimed that the material had been shot in 1947 near Roswell in Arizona and showed the dissection of a dead alien by American government scientists.

In April 2006 John Humphreys, an established film and television effects specialist, admitted that he Mr Santilli and three other people had filmed the footage themselves in Camden in 1995. The alien models had been made of latex that had been stuffed with assorted meat off-cuts that he had bought from Smithfield Market.

David Backhouse 2024