The farmer and the butcher have handed over signed affidavits the parents' birth certificates photostats from the pedigree handbook and

The farmer and the butcher have handed over signed affidavits, the parents' birth certificates, photostats from the pedigree handbook, and a detailed diary of feed from the day it was born, and now you're on your own.ROASTING: Obviously the favoured method. May need to be wrapped with extra fat.RIB: Foreribs and wing ribs are the prized roasting cuts, the better for being roast on the bone. Grass produces well-marbled meat, dark, with soft yellow fat. The final factor is hanging; Mr Lidgate says the perfect meat may be hung up to three weeks. Butchers prefer less time since there is a 10 to 15 per cent weight loss in this time (they think of it as profit loss).Supermarkets are grudgingly going down this road, though hanging is more likely to be between a week and 10 days (M&S hangs its Angus for one week, then matures it for two more in a VacPac, to avoid further weight loss).. THE MAIN CUTS OF BEEF STEAKS (rump, topside, entrecote, chateaubriand, mignon): Easy to cook, fried or grilled, with ever more complicated French refinements and sauces. FILLET: The tenderest cut, smooth in texture, the most expensive, but lacking flavour.SIRLOIN: A prime roasting cut.

At the base is meat in burgers, sausages, pies, where the source is not declared. Our glossary of beef appears opposite (What's your beef?).David Lidgate also has advice on the factors that affect flavour First, the breed Angus and similar cattle have fat, and therefore flavour The feedstuff, too, is important. As a first step, we need education so people can understand the shape of the beef industry What is a cow. What is a steer."Using such knowledge, suggests butcher David Lidgate, people would be able to assess what risk to take You can use a pyramid as a model, he says At the top, the least risk will be beef from suckler herds Next, from organic farms Next, from grass-fed animals. You must remember, in the past, animals were often moved from farm to farm. This will change."He is confident of the safety of this meat, but can't make a scientific statement that it is clear "I don't want to build up a false dream.

We daren't make claims and then have science catch up with us The industry can't stand another dent. Their tasting panels chomped their way through some 4,000 steaks before settling on the breed and feeding strategy.David Walker proudly furnishes his records; the daily feeds, medicines, the provenance of every animal, certificates of pedigree, books of ancestry dating back to 1923 This is information they plan to share with the public. "The image of the industry is important now," explains Mr Gilbert-Wood "We are looking to integrated farms. He can store 1,000 tons of it in a high-walled space, the size of half a football pitch, covered with plastic, packed down with old rubber tyres. This traditional feed is no more expensive than buying in feed concentrates, points out Mr Gilbert-Wood.

"It doesn't cost more to be a good farmer than a bad farmer."David Walker also grows his own barley and supplements their feed with carrots, something of a gourmet item in their diet (ones rejected by Safeway as too large or unshapely). The local meat processor, Scotbeef, monitors the farm, and also singles out individual animals whose progress they can follow, and whose eating quality will be analysed. It is farmed by David Walker (his uncle James is a director of the famous Aberlour company of Walkers Shortbread). It is a scene of bucolic beauty, ducks and geese wandering the farmyard where the dense black Aberdeen Angus is king, this amiable, friendly and proud beast.