Towards the end of my civil service career, I found myself participating in a multiagency operation which involved what were essentially raids on mobile food operatives, mainly kebab vans. The operation involved potential tax and National Insurance avoidance/evasion, the use of illegal migrants, the employment of benefit claimants and hygiene. For someone who occasionally indulged – note the past tense – in a late night takeaway, it was, to say the least, eye-opening. Some of the premises were spotlessly clean with good levels of hygiene, others were not. The revelation that an investigation into the industry, particularly relating to kebabs, has revealed that not only is the food not always of good quality and it is often not what it purports to be.
The apparent revelation that lamb kebabs have actually consisted of very little actual lamb and rather more skin, fat and goat comes as no surprise to me. The agency staff I worked with explained that the the giant lump of meat that was slowly grilled in the van cost absolute buttons and that was for a reason. It was full of crap. In two of the vans, the meat hadn’t even been properly defrosted. Since that day, around 13 or 14 years ago, I have never so much as considered a late night kebab, never meant eaten one, regardless of the quantities of alcohol I have consumed. The most disturbing, yet still very funny, quotes come from the Swansea trading standards officer Rhys Harries:
“We didn’t see any lamb apart from lamb fat. There were pallets of goat, pallets of trim, offcuts with high fat content, boxes of fat, boxes of skin, bits of mutton. It all goes into a massive mincer and comes out looking like Play-Doh.”
I am more surprised to learn that people are, well, surprised about this. Anyone who has ever bought a late night takeaway from a van must surely know they are not buying top quality, nourishing food? I once saw a box of burgers being used by a burger van and the ingredients were exactly what I was expecting. The burgers contained all sorts of stuff like rusk and the main meat was Beef heart. They had been processed to an inch of their lives. Yet they tasted nice. If I closed my eyes, and caked the burger in as much onion and cheap ketchup, I could almost convince myself that this was a top quality product. But only almost. Ten pints of Boston’s Old Thumper makes the difference to most folk!
The BBC story suggests that these issues have now been resolved and, by suggestion, when you buy your next lamb kebab, there may actually be lamb in it. I hope so for your sake. I’m afraid I’ve been put off for life what I have seen in person and by the report of the trading standards investigation. I have nothing against goats – they’re quite a delicacy in the holiday island I’ve just come back from – but if I want a goat kebab, I’ll ask for one, thank you very much. And actually, I really won’t.
