Warm sweetbread salad

I LOVE vegetables and fresh salads and could certainly live on them without feeling even remotely deprived. Having said that I am totally not a vegetarian — I love good meat and fish. However I am not interested and I certainly don’t feel comfortable eating either meat or fish that has been reared in cramped, inhumane conditions all for the sake of providing cheap food.

Every animal and bird deserves a noble end. If we kill an animal for food then we should at least do them the honour of using every possible bit, served up as a nourishing celebration in a restaurant or on the family table. Every scrap from the nose to the tail can be utterly delicious once we understand how to cook the cheaper cuts and the ‘variety meats’ as Americans delicately call offal. The latter is so inexpensive every butcher in the country has a surplus because so many people are squeamish about unusual bits of animal.

The mere mention of offal has many people wrinkling up their noses in disgust. We don’t know what we’re missing. If you feel brave enough to try something other than the recognisable prime cuts — this is the very best time of the year, for lambs kidneys, sweet breads and liver — so chat up your local butcher.