Ban the bones?

There is a myth surrounding the traditional restaurant kitchen stockpot: that it is about to be banned by the Government. Men in white coats at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food, so the myth goes, perspire at the thought of what horrors may come from simmering beef bones, in the wake of mad cow disease and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

This concern over possible BSE-related health risks with bones from UK beef has been added to those of the other opponents of the traditional stockpot - those environmental health officers who see a danger in the whole concept of making stock from ingredient by-products, waiting for it to chill down, holding it under refrigeration and then reheating it.

The "will they-won't they" saga is a story that the manufacturers of prepared stocks are slow to deny, and is fuelled by the complex nature of the legislation that currently applies to the use of beef bones in food production in the UK.

The ban on bones being left in beef killed in the UK, or sold to chefs for stock production, was introduced at the height of the BSE crisis and was lifted only in December 1999. Chefs were then allowed to resume producing traditional stocks without buying expensive imported bones (which was legal) or flouting the law (which was widespread).

However, while the UK beef-bone ban was lifted for restaurant kitchens, it has remained in force for stocks used in industrial food production. This means that stocks used in the production of chilled and frozen ready meals, so popular in the pub sector, must not have any beef-bone content from UK cattle.

The manufacturers of chilled and frozen ready meals are quick to point out that a great deal of the beef stock preparations used in their production are, in fact, vegetarian products. The flavourings come from the use of yeast extract, salt and monosodium glutamate. Added to this is the fact that a great many of those beef stock concentrates which do use beef extract are made with beef products sourced from South America, on whose use there are no restrictions in the UK.

One of the biggest distributors of frozen ready meals into the pub sector is Brake Bros. A spokesman for the company says that it is not affected because it does not itself manufacture any of the stocks used in its frozen meals, and there are many ways in which the company's suppliers can make stocks without bones. "It's a small issue," he comments.

Yet it seems just a small step from the ban on the use of beef bones in industrial meal production to a ban affecting restaurant kitchen production. Is there any truth behind the urban myth?

The answer is: yes. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) admits to Caterer that the use of beef bones in kitchens will come up on its agenda as part of an ongoing examination of the BSE controls.

Pressed for details and timetables, the FSA says there is a review about to take place on the effectiveness of the 30-month rule to see if any changes are advisable. This rule says that all UK beef for human consumption must be no more than 30 months old at slaughter.

This will be followed by a review of the countries from which beef bone matter can be imported into the UK in the light of the development of BSE globally. After that there will be a review of the restrictions on use of beef bones in food production, including the use of beef bones in restaurant stockpots.

Is this the point where the urban myth will become true and the use of UK beef bones in restaurant kitchens will be banned, or will there be a relaxation for everyone? That decision, says the FSA, is what the review is all about.

REACTIONS TO A POSSIBLE BAN

Stock manufacturers

The makers of convenience stock products all say that any restriction on the use of beef-bone extracts coming from EU cattle would not affect them.

Pritchitt Foods' marketing director, Ian Stone, says that the company's Chef Taste range of stocks would be unaffected by any legislation, as no animal products are used. "Our beef stock gets its taste from a natural flavour base that does not use an animal extract," he says.

Ritter Courivaud, whose Remember The Past range of stocks is manufactured in the Netherlands and is only just coming into the UK, does use beef in the production of its beef stock, but the UK agent for these top-end stock pastes, Godfrey Langrish-Smith, says that only beef muscle is used in production. "We believe that you have to use beef to get a true beef flavour in a stock," he says, "but it is all boneless beef."

Essential Cuisine managing director Nigel Crane, a former chef at London's Dorchester hotel, also believes that beef should be in beef stocks and that real beef flavour cannot be achieved by combining the savouriness of yeast extract with fat, salt and monosodium glutamate. "I'm not saying you can't get a meaty flavour using yeast extracts," he says, "but chefs want a natural product. Beef stock should contain beef." Essential Cuisine stocks are in powder form and use both powdered bone stock and beef extract, but both products come from outside the EU.

Nestlé's The Chef range of foods and sauce bases also include beef products in their manufacture, but a spokesman for Nestlé says that none of its products would be affected should a ban be imposed on the use of bones from BSE-affected countries in Europe, as they are all sourced from outside the EU.

Chefs

While the use of scratch stocks has gone almost entirely from the food service sector and is disappearing gradually in high-street restaurants and hotels, at the top end of the restaurant sector beef and veal bones are extensively used in stock production. Chefs are horrified to learn that the issue may come under scrutiny again.

Steve Williams, executive chef of the Devonshire Arms hotel in North Yorkshire, says: "There will be an outcry. Bought-in stocks are no comparison. The only way around it would be to use chicken; if you caramelise chicken wings really well, you can get a flavour. We put chicken in beef and veal stocks to round and soften the flavour slightly."

David Pitchford, chef-proprietor of Read's at Faversham in Kent, says that if any ban on the use of beef bones included veal bones, it would make a significant difference to Michelin-starred restaurants, which use a lot of veal bones. "Veal bones make a neutral stock that can take on the flavour of anything," he says. "The gelatine you get from veal bones is also important in stopping sauces skinning. When we couldn't use bones and had to use chicken for stocks, I used to add some gelatine to it."

Paul Firmin, chef-proprietor of Howard's House hotel in Salisbury, Wiltshire, says: "We use only veal bones, but if they were to become unavailable it would be pretty serious for us. Veal stock is used in all our reduction sauces. We use no thickening agents, and not to be able to use them would take so much out of our cooking."

Albert Mackay, chef-proprietor of the Guinach House hotel in Aberfeldy, Perthshire, says: "I couldn't do without beef bones - my stockpot is permanently on - but it's obviously going to happen one day. There is more and more red tape. All the good classical ideas are getting knocked on the head, and they're driving the taste and flavour out of food."