A butcher’s story
The block is where Simon Taylor makes his music. RUPERT BATES meets a butcher determined to promote his profession and highlight its role in health and nutrition
My only tenuous link to the world of butchers is through my great uncle, the artist Eric Ravilious with his High Street lithograph Family Butcher and The Butcher's Shop watercolour.
Simon Taylor identified with the 1930s paintings, embracing the nostalgia of the local, independent butcher that Ravilious portrays. But, in most other respects, Taylor is a thoroughly modern master of meat, be it behind the counter, on the road doing cooking demonstrations at festivals, or competing as captain of Team GB Butchery team.
Taylor started as a butcher’s boy aged 13 at West End in Surrey, earning £25 a week, alongside paper rounds and car washing – early signs of an entrepreneurial spirit and strong work ethic.
He went on to become an apprentice, but in his mid-20s he become disillusioned with the world of butchery and even tried and failed to join the fire brigade.
Step forward butcher Rob Mussell, who offered Taylor a job and rekindled his love
of the trade and in particular his passion for food, not just cooking it, but learning about its provenance and its role – both nutritionally and societally.
Taylor learnt not only new skills, such as knife work, but the importance of managing people and customer service, sharing his knowledge across the counter.
“I have wanted to be a chef since I was a child and remember making pies and stews with my nan.”
He is certainly a talented cook, especially over live fire, and earlier in the year held centre stage with chefs and celebrities at Taste of London. The theatre of the Fire Pit in Regent’s Park drew the crowds, holding cooking demonstrations and Taylor teaching about the meat on the flames, the importance of its provenance and the life journey of the animal.
Turning the clock back again and in 2011 he acquired a “very run-down shop in Oxshott”, which is now the flourishing Surrey Hills Butchers and aptly calling itself ‘traditional butchery with modern twists’.
You sense Ravilious, more South Downs than Surrey Hills, would have approved, especially as Taylor is often found sporting a flat cap straight out of the artist’s painting.
“The shop could only be improved, but I was very conscious about holding on to old-fashioned values and virtues, an intimacy with the customer.”
Those values proved vital during the pandemic, as people, immobilised by lockdowns, reconnected with their local shops and supply chains, pulling together as communities.
“There are now around 6,000 butchers when there used to be 60,000. It should not just be about selling cuts of meat but educating the customers about those meats and how best to cook them, in a convivial, not preachy, way. I am always learning something new myself,” says Taylor, with Surrey Hills Butchers now three shops in Oxshott, Frensham and Windlesham.
He recoils at some of the meat prices out there for even average produce and is evangelical about quality, animal welfare, low food miles and nutritional value – a student of the soil and how poor soil equates to bad nutrition and consequently diet.
Taylor may be a butcher selling meat, but he has total respect for all food choices and beliefs. He just wants everybody properly educated, rather than the adversarial and often misinformed battles waged between carnivores, vegetarians and vegans.
“We want our farming to be sustainable and regenerative. This means that not only do we not want to cause any more damage to our planet, but we want to go a step further and actually repair some of the damage caused,” says Taylor.
“Some people believe all meat farming is detrimental to the planet, when in fact farming carried out in the correct way is one of the best resources to fix the damage.”
Manage and rear animals naturally on grassland – and there is plenty of it – and you increase the soil’s organic matter and store carbon, while also supporting a
wide range of wildlife and encouraging biodiversity, says Taylor.
“It is about natural farming methods, pasture-fed animals and less processed food,” he adds.
At this point, Taylor the butcher turns agronomist and even chemist and microbiologist, explaining how we can eat healthier for ourselves and the environment.
Taylor is a strong advocate of Pasture for Life and the work of the Pasture-Fed Livestock Association, which champions sustainable farming, grass-fed animals and the nutritional value of the food produced.
Taylor has personal reasons for his healthy eating crusade. Captaining Team GB in the World Butchers’ Challenge in 2018, he found himself working and playing too hard. He fell ill, with heart problems revealed, leading to pills for life and a need for a balanced diet and balanced lifestyle.
Taylor loves to barbecue, embracing the culture of live-fire cooking and al fresco dining, drawing on international influences and knowing better than most what meat is smoking on his grills and how.
“BBQ is great for community, pulling people together around the fire, sharing and talking. I am planning an outdoor kitchen at home, and it is the most enjoyable and elemental way of cooking,” says Taylor, with his favourite a tomahawk steak with dirty cooked onions and celeriac.
“Serve on a sharing platter with a chimichurri sauce and a tomato balsamic salad.”
The countdown now begins to the World Butchers’ Challenge 2022 in Sacramento, California next September, with Taylor once again at the helm and Team GB Butchery training to be organised.
Billed as ‘the greatest butchery event on earth’ the Challenge, which started in 2011 as a trans-Tasman shoot-out between New Zealand and Australia, now pits 16 countries against each other, not just competing on technique, skill, workmanship and presentation, but learning and sharing, elevating the butcher’s craft with creativity and innovation.
“It is also a wonderful opportunity to showcase the best of British butchery and promote our industry both at home and abroad,” says Taylor, with BBQ magazine recently announced as media partner of Team GB.
His rising profile across the world of butchery and live fire cooking may give Taylor a marinade of stardust, but for him it is about the wider message, promoting the best of British meat and the great butchers across the country playing pivotal roles in the farm to fork food journey for both the enjoyment and health of the nation.
