New cuts on the block: Thriftier meats are undergoing a revival

John Copping takes out a knife. "Stand back," he says, "I don't want you to get blood on your coat." Across a double-length butcher's block he arranges a mighty chunk of cow carcass and carves it expertly so that four ribs are exposed, French-style. Copping lifts off a great flap of fatty tissue flecked with red – alarmingly, it reminds me of the "muffin tops" that hang over trouser tops in a British summer – and puts it to one side. "That's the flap, the cheaper cut," he says. "It'll sell for less than the côte de boeuf. In butchery, you use everything."

The knife put aside, Copping grabs a hacksaw and starts sawing at the beef's chine bone, the butcher's term for the backbone. It's physical stuff, which is probably one of the reasons that the Ginger Pig – the butcher where Copping works – has a series of well-attended courses, primarily attracting youngish men happy to get their aprons splattered in ruminant claret. Finally, Copping ties string around the joint, and dinner's almost ready.

There's been a revival in butchery. Neighbourhood butchers are thriving and old, cheaper cuts are coming out of the culinary attic: brisket, skirt, shin, hock – and beef flap. The conductor Ivor Setterfield, who happens to be shopping in the Ginger Pig, is a convert. "Shopping here has made me realise the difference between supermarkets and real butchers," he says. "Plus it's a pleasure to shop here. It smells good. It's an interesting experience." Trad meat is back and tastier than ever.

This rediscovery of the meats of yore has various root causes. It's a bit Fearnley-Whittingstall, a shade Fergus "St John" Henderson, a lot farm-to-fork, and a hefty pinch of recession. "Cost is a huge reason why our customers are rediscovering things like shoulder of lamb," says Copping. Ed Bedington, editor of the Meat Trades Journal, agrees. "You're starting to see old cuts coming into fashion and it's definitely driven by economy," he says. "Because of this trend, in this year's National Butchers' Week we're looking at slow-cooking cuts like brisket, skirt and shoulder."

The meat industry has noticed and is stepping up to the plate. "There's been a seismic shift in attitudes towards alternative cuts of beef," says Laurent Vernet of Quality Meat Scotland. "It particularly comes from men and women in their twenties and thirties, who previously would never have contemplated unfamiliar ingredients." There may be fewer independent butchers around now – numbers have fallen from 21,000 some 25 years ago, to about 6,000 today – but those that are trading report dramatic increases in the older cuts, and this boom has been taken on at the smarter supermarkets.

"Sales of thrifty cuts are soaring," says Waitrose meat buyer Anna Lloyd. "Ox cheeks are up by more than 80 per cent and lamb shoulder shanks, which cost a fraction of the price of prime lamb shanks, are up by as much as 200 per cent." Lloyd explains that this is due to Waitrose buying whole carcasses for ethical reasons – but adds that it is also to do with straitened economic times forcing greater culinary creativity. It's a view supported by a recent Mintel report, which found that independent butchers have seen cheaper cuts of beef rise significantly.

The first stirrings of this carnivorous revivalism were in the restaurants, where belly pork has been, arguably, the most fashionable dish of the last year. Henderson's St John, plus restaurants such as The Anchor and Hope and the Magdalen in London, have all gone native with their meats, spearheading a visceral return for the parts of pig that few thought they'd ever see again. Still, the trend continues. At the Chop House, Butler's Wharf, a menu called "The Offal Truth" is offered throughout January, featuring dishes such as stuffed venison heart. "We're selling dishes like faggots made of venison offal and people are saying, 'I haven't had faggots since I was young'," says head chef Winston Matthews. "They're going really well."

John Torode, one of Masterchef's critical duo and guvnor of Smiths in the thoroughly meaty London quarter of Smithfield, also testifies to a shift, which he believes will last. "In my book Beef and Other Bovine Matters [Quadrille, £20], the inside cover showed the various parts of a cow," he says. "It's part of a re-education, which shows people that they can save money and eat well at the same time." Part of the problem, says Torode, is that it was fashionable for supermarkets to sell meat that was lean and young, which suggested healthiness. "But older beef has more flavour because of the longer time grazing," he says. "Plus, the cuts from the muscles that do all the work – such as the shin of beef – are more flavoursome than the idle muscles, where more expensive cuts like fillet steak come from."

The Ginger Pig, which has five branches, is an exemplar of the neo-traditional boutique butcher. Since it started 15 years ago in a farm outbuilding in Nottinghamshire, it has moved to North Yorkshire where it has 55 employees, along with a few thousand assorted pigs, sheep and cattle. Jane Larder of the Ginger Pig says that it has been led by the farmer's market generation, television and pioneering restaurants. "Now, the customers want a clearer idea of where their food comes from. They like reviving tradition. And they realise it tastes good." Slow cooking, stewing, boiling, braising – all of these are raising the toothsome promise of real meat, and finally putting a stop to memories of school dinner and its despised gristle.

The manager of the Ginger Pig's Marylebone shop, Patrice Lardon (both Larder and Lardon suffer daily jokes about their names) says that the new carnivores also enjoy the shopping experience. "It's partly the service," he says. "It makes customers feel special, and they're becoming well-informed. They ask for aged beef, and specify how long. Some ask for the whole pig's head [Lardon says that a pigs head, properly handled, could feed up to 25 and costs £10] and even make brawn and jelly. Quite seriously, we sell out of pigs' trotters." A couple have even wanted to make their own black pudding. "We've had a couple asking for pig's blood," says Lardon. "I wouldn't say it's a big thing, but the spirit is there."

Is this phenomenon taking place only in fancy-pants foodie London? No, says Kenny Roberts of Elite Meats in Lincoln, who has seen business transform in the last year or two. "It's definitely changed since the recession," he says. "The emphasis is now on the cheaper cuts: lamb shanks, pork hocks, beef shins." The customers, adds Roberts, are not grannies rediscovering their youths, but "the young-to-middle aged. Some are even boiling up trotters to make gelatine. And oxtail is definitely fashionable again, as is haggis." He reckons it's a bit of an anti-supermarket thing. "You go into a supermarket for one thing and come out with three bags of stuff you don't want," he says. "Here, a transaction educates people about butchery." In a real butcher's, meat has meaning.

There are still problems. Many people still, as Larder puts it, "don't know how to use a butcher" and unsurprisingly, there isn't a great training infrastructure for butchers in the UK: Larder can think of only one school of butchery, in Leeds. But perhaps the trend towards skilled, old-fashioned butchery will reignite the profession, and youngsters will once more don the butcher's apron with pride. Some traditions may still have a way to go, though. "We couldn't sell brawn under its proper name," says Winston Matthews of the Chop House. "But we find that if we call it 'pressed pork terrine' it flies out of the door."

From top to tail: Six neglected cuts to try

Trotters

Already discovered by gastronomes such as Pierre Koffman at La Tante Claire and Marco Pierre White at the Hyde Park Hotel and, of course, Fergus Henderson, these are the feet that carried the bacon.

Beef shin

It carries the cow and now has a new lease of life, courtesy of cooks like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who has a celebrated recipe for braised shin of beef.

Bath chaps

The lower half of a pig's cheek, Bath chaps hail from the Georgian city and environs, and are made from the meat of pigs' cheeks, smoked, boiled, bread-crumbed and served cold like ham. The Pump House gastropub in Bristol serves them as a starter with langoustine tails.

Oxtail

As the name suggests, this is the tail of the beast. It also has a strong Caribbean following, and is good braised with mustard and mash for a real credit crunch winter warmer.

Lamb shanks

Lamb shanks have been well and truly bought back by a generation of meat eaters wanting to keep Sunday lunch under £20. In 'Nigella Bites', Ms Lawson describes the shank as "meaty and cheap".

Beef skirt

Not an insult but a description for the part of the beef from below the diaphragm. An inexpensive cut of meat it is, to quote Delia Smith, "an excellent cut for braising and one end can even be grilled".

National Butchers' Week will take place 16-21 March 2009