I’m so very excited to have for you a review, done by my gorgeous Husband, of some meat that we were sent by Tarberts Fine Foods, so without further ado here’s what he thought:

I’m a carnivore. There, I said it. I’m one of the people that militant vegetarians dislike. I love meat.

I love vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds and all that other stuff that’s good for me too, but deep, deep down I like nothing more than tucking into a thick sandwich, full of roast beef and horseradish sauce and washing it down with a glass of beer (or the odd splash of wine if I’m feeling cosmopolitan).

With that in mind, you can imagine my response when my wife approached me and asked me to trough my way through a hamper of quality cold-cuts, take notes, and wax lyrical about the process!

The cold-cuts in question were provided by Tarbert Fine Foods, and we were very pleased to receive a nice selection, including topside of beef, butter basted chicken, heather honey ham and (the wee one’s favourite) ham with Arran mustard, with a mind to offering an informed opinion in the run-up to Christmas.

The first part was easy. The eating.

I happily sat, and with the help of my beautiful assistant (my daughter) munched my way through sandwiches, rolls, baps, bagels, salads and even a nice omelette. The quality of the produce was universally excellent. All the meat that Tarbert’s sell comes from specially selected Scottish sources and, well, it shows.

But once we had completed the fun part I began to agonise – how do you review meat?

I didn’t want to chuck a lot of garbled clichés onto my lovely wife’s blog, and hope that it passed for writing. So I decided that the only way to give you a fair, accurate representation of the produce would be for me to ask my lovely, precocious and delightfully blunt daughter to give me her opinions, and here they are!

Daughter – “It was yummy! Can I have some more, please?!”

Me – “All of it? Was it all yummy? Come on, be scientific!”

Daughter – “Can I have some more please, Daddy?”

Me – “No. You’ll go pop!”

Daughter – “But Ponyo eats lots of ham and she’s magic!”

Me – “Yes, but..erm…it’s, she’s..”

And at that point I gave up, slapped myself on the forehead and shelved the idea in favour of being honest and less lazy.

The meat tasted like it was freshly carved, and when you’re used to grabbing a Dairy Lea Dunker and a soggy sandwich full of ‘wafer thin ham’ on your down time you notice things like that.

The heather honey ham made a fantastic meal, served with nothing more than a couple of fried eggs and a plain green salad, and it was something that even I, the worst chef in the world, could knock together in a trice.

The cuts of beef were superb too. They weren’t dry, but moist and succulent and went down a treat with some English mustard (or a dollop of ketchup in the wee one’s case).

But then, all of it was fantastic. It’s high quality, fresh tasting food that is directly comparable to something you’d buy from your local quality butcher or deli counter, and the fact that it’s pre-packed means you can rely on it lasting a while.

In all honesty my ‘review’ could have been one sentence:

“It’s good, old fashioned, nice tasting meat and I recommend you go out, buy some and eat it at once.”

Wouldn’t that have been better?