Courses
Salami production at Plumpton - Saffron Summerfield joins a new butchery course at the East Sussex college
SALAMIS and cured sausages are essentially a raw product. Fermented and air dried, producers rely on a number of methods other than cooking to make cured sausages safe for consumption.
The Centre for Sustainable Food and Farming, based at Plumpton College at Netherfield East Sussex, ran the first of their new salami production courses recently, as part of their Get Skilled in Butchery Programme. The course was supported with funding from the South East Food Group Partnership and SEEDA.
Experienced salami maker, Justin Davis, delivered a detailed classroom lecture covering essential information on the use of cures, pH levels, and drying conditions to meet health and safety requirements for commercial sales. The course moved on to production techniques and Justin provided a detailed design for how to convert a fridge into a curing chamber to air dry the sausages. The one day course finished with a practical session making up a salami mix, stuffing casings and tying off the ends with a butterfly knot (a useful tip to preventing the meat from falling out when drying).
For more information about future salami production courses or other butchery and meat processing courses contact Plumpton College at Netherfield, near Battle, East Sussex, TN33 9PY, Tel: 01424 775615 info@thenetherfieldcentre.co.uk
Plumpton is running a series of open days in 2008: February 18 - 21 - Taster sessions for school students. Ask for information booklet.
March 8, 9am-12.30 pm - Information morning. Course options, careers and advice.
May 10, 10am-5pm - Open Day events. Experience courses in action!
The college has taken up the challenge of encouraging children to understand more about where their food comes from with local school children taking part in a Year of Food and Farming project. The pupils, aged between eleven and twelve, had the chance to investigate the training and employment opportunities on offer within the land-based sector, by taking part in a wide range of activities and demonstrations provided by the college and supporting businesses.
Activities included investigating tractors, riding the mechanical horse at the college, learning about milk production on the college farm, tree-climbing with the forestry team and making floral buttonholes with the floristry department.
Amazingly, even youngsters in rural areas are still unsure of where milk comes from and more alarmingly, they rarely get out to see their local environment with many children unable to identify farm animals. On a recent fieldtrip taking 50 ,six to seven year olds to their local nature reserve I was horrified that children upon hearing a cuckoo thought it was their grannies clock chiming!
See www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk for more details.
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