We Londoners have a strange relationship with meat, consuming it voraciously but preferring to ignore its bloody origins and turn up our noses at the rarer cuts. So, in a unique experiment, Time Out decided to buy a cow, cut it up and eat the lot; look out for our series of recipes and cooking tips
In most butchers' shops the cold room is tucked away at the back, lest the sight of dead animals offend customers. But in this, as in most other respects, The Ginger Pig on Moxon Street is different. You can see right into its cold room through a window running the length of the wall. The intact carcasses resemble wax carvings. There are joints too: some bright red, some much darker – aubergine, like a freshly acquired bruise. We're here because a flippant suggestion in a Time Out editorial meeting has turned serious. 'Why don't we buy a whole cow and cook every part of it?' I wondered aloud and, the next thing I knew, the cow was bought. Now the Time Out amateur butchers' team, deceptively professional in borrowed white coats, follows Borut the bona-fide butcher through the sliding door. The cold is intense, the floor tacky with blood and bits of meat. We tread carefully. But Borut doesn't. He's wearing trainers. I wonder if he takes them off when he gets home, or whether he's so inured to working with and around meat that he forgets and stomps mince into the carpet. Maybe I'll ask him, once he's put that big knife down.
