How can a product as simple as Beef Dripping win the Supreme
Champion Award at the Great Taste Awards?
The kind of thing you don’t really think of as a vital
ingredient, we all use it for Roasties, to make the perfect Triple Cooked Chips,
to power up the Yorkshires, but it’s still just dripping.
Until, that is, a master of his craft turns his attention to
producing the best dripping possible.
Pat Whelan inherited the family butchers James Whelan Butchers
in Clonmel as well as the family farms and set out to provide the finest meats
to his customers. With his own farms, an abattoir and an expanding range of
shops as well as a strong network of farmers and other butchers to discuss
ideas with he is ideally placed so to do.
But it’s Pat’s philosophy of food that is the real driver to
success. He loves his farms and animals and wants to produce the best meats by
respecting the animals and seeking to use every part of the animal that he has
lovingly reared.
You can read more of Pat’s philosophy and background in his
two books, An Irish Butcher Shop and The Irish Beef Book, written with Katy McGuinness.
If you want this amazing Dripping in the UK you'll be heading for Harrods or Fortnum and Mason, the only stores to get their hands on this bovine ambrosia.
And as to the future ? Well, I might have heard a whisper about a very tasty Lard.
To Keep up with Pat and the team at James Whelan Butchers follow @Pat_Whelan and @JWButchers.
Beef Dripping is a taste of our childhood, sadly side-lined
by the years of attack on real fats and promotion of assorted oils by governments
largely in thrall to big agribusiness. High time for a real comeback and now
there is a growing realisation that fats like Butter and Dripping are not
harmful and are natural products unlike the so
called ‘Spreads’ and cooking aids. Let’s be honest here I would rather
trust a cow than a chemist, and it’s not Fat it’s Flavour.
So how does one man raise dripping from everyday store cupboard
ingredient to Award Winning status?
By working long and hard to ensure that the product is the
best, over several years, trying, tasting and refining to make the ultimate
dripping.
The Dripping comes from the Hereford Cattle that Pat farms
in County Tipperary, famed for its meat quality the Hereford would produce
great fat for dripping, and it’s not just a case of rendering fat to dripping.
The fats are carefully chosen and blended to bring out the best taste. The fats
around the Kidney –or Inner Fats as Pat calls them are skilfully blended with
Outer Fats – those from the working muscle areas that we would see as the
various cuts of meat. The result is a smooth dripping which imparts a lot of
taste to whichever dish you are using it in. If ever there was a Beef Extract
this is it not that brown stuff that you add water to for a drink at a football
match. Perhaps a little steak finds its way into the render to add that beefy
goodness?
Now for the very minor role that I played in the
development.
A few years ago I was talking with Pat who told me that he
wanted to revive Dripping which had gone out of favour, and he asked me whether
butchers in the UK still sold it. Certainly in our area they did. “Can you find
out how they package their dripping” I was asked.
My memories were of tall waxed packets which stood on shelves
in the shops with the butchers name and a picture of a cow on them, so that’s
what we wanted to find so that Pat could package a traditional food in a
traditional package. Would you believe it? A new team of EHOs had persuaded our
local butchers that they were much better off selling their dripping in
sealable plastic pots! A mad dash round butchers in a 50 mile radius couldn’t produce
one example of traditional packaging.
Luckily Pat is not the man to take this as a setback and he
designed this own elegant package that reflects the past.
So released last year, Pat put his Dripping into The Great
Taste Awards where it won 3 Stars, the maximum possible.
More research and development and the 2015 version was
submitted and again won 3 stars. As a 3 star product it was re-tasted to see
whether it should make the Top 50 and earn a place at the dinner which
celebrates the finest products of the year.
Pat was duly invited and made his way to London for the meal
alongside some great Irish producers and the cream of contestants.
Each entrant has a chance of winning The Golden Fork for
their Region or Sector of the food business and Pat was delighted to win The
Golden Fork for Best Irish Product. “At
that stage I decided to celebrate” he told me, “The tie was loosened and drink
was taken”.
Minutes later he was called back to receive the overall
Golden Fork as Supreme Champion 2015!
Food industry insiders like Charles Campion and William
Sitwell loved it as you can see from the video links below
One amazing product that can change your whole cooking and
bring so much flavour to every dish that uses it.
Where can you get it? Obviously in the Clonmel branch of
James Whelan Butchers and from their branches in Avoca Ireland in Rathcoole,
Monkstown and Kilmacanogue or online from http://www.jameswhelanbutchers.com/
If you want this amazing Dripping in the UK you'll be heading for Harrods or Fortnum and Mason, the only stores to get their hands on this bovine ambrosia.
And as to the future ? Well, I might have heard a whisper about a very tasty Lard.
