Lamb on school lunch menu for St Andrew’s Day
More than 9,800 school children will be cooking and eating lamb donated by Scotland’ s livestock auction marts next week as part of the ‘ Make It Lamb for St Andrew’s Day’ initiative.
A total of 114 primary and secondary schools across Scotland will be cooking specially created lamb dishes, from pizza to lamb dhansak, in Home Economics classes and school canteens when over 1250 kg s of fresh Scottish lamb will be delivered free, courtesy of the organisations and individuals involved.
The campaign has received wide-spread support from the industry, including the Institute of Auctioneers( IA AS ), Quality Meat Scotland (QMS), NFU Scotland ( NFUS) and the National Sheep Association Scotland ( NSAS) and builds on the scheme which was the brainchild of United Auctions managing director, George Purves.
The initiative to promote lamb as theme at of choice for St Andrew’s Day on November 30 first started in 2012 and has been gathering pace since – and this year, the auctioneers association asked mart sand farmers to donate lamb for schools, which has been generously supported and allowed the campaign to grow.
The IAAS will manage the delivery of the lamb–in ready to cook format - to the participating schools as well as to a social enterprise café, The Usual Place, in Dumfries which is cooking lamb dishes for the whole week prior to St Andrew’s Day.
The ins tit ute’s executive director, Neil Wilson, said that the aim of the Make It Lamb for St Andrew’s Day campaign was to encourage everyone in Scotland to make Scotch Lamb the dish for the national patron’s day, in the same way that haggis was synonymous with Burns Night and turkey with Christmas.
“This is a great opportunity for us to promote our customers’ lamb and also show that our auction marts really want to make a difference to consumer attitudes to lamb and to support the schools in our local areas,” said Wilson.
“The more we can encourage the consumers of tomorrow, as well as of today, to enjoy cooking and eating lamb, the more we benefit the whole industry from farmer to retailer.”
One of the teachers involved, Is la Porteous, of the Home Economics department at Dumfries Academy has offered children in years S 1- S 3 a choice of two recipes.
“Budgetary constraints mean that lamb is not generally on the school menu or in the Home Economics kitchens, so being able to offer our pupils the chance to experiment with and taste a different meat is brilliant and makes such a difference to us.
“At the core of what we do is inspiring young people to try new foods and be conscious of healthy eating choices. Cooking with lamb is a perfect opportunity to talk about the farm to food story, nutrition and to encourage them to be adventurous with new tastes and dishes,” said Porteus.
A special series of recipes has been devised by QMS to demonstrate how versatile and easy lamb is to cook with, including a lamb curry by celebrity Edinburgh chef Tony Singh MBE.