Alejandro Rivero

Customer: "Do you do bones? I've been told to make broth for the collagen." Butcher: "Who told you?" Customer: "The woman in the health shop. She's just sold me a tub of the powder as well. Twenty-eight quid." Butcher: "What's it say on the tub?" Customer: "Bovine collagen. Hydrolysed." Butcher: "What's bovine?" Customer: "...Cow." Butcher: "Which bit of the cow?" Customer: "It doesn't say." Butcher: "The hide. They take the skin off him, boil it down, dry it to a powder and sell it back to you by the gram. That's the whole industry. It's him, in a tub, at about forty times what I'd get for the skin." Customer: "So it does work?" Butcher: "It's gelatine. Same as a trifle. Your grandmother got it off the Sunday joint and called it gravy that set." Customer: "What should I buy, then?" Butcher: "Shin. Oxtail. A trotter if you're brave. The bits with the gristle in, that's the collagen you've just paid £28 for. Three hours, lid on, and the pan sets solid in the fridge overnight." Customer: "Solid?" Butcher: "Like a jelly. That's the test. If the broth doesn't set, there was no collagen in it. The pouches in the supermarket don't set. Half of them have gelatine added so they look like they did." Customer: "And the tub?" Butcher: "The tub's a trotter that went to university. Keep it if you like. I'll do you a kilo of shin for a fiver and you can have the bones for nothing, same as my dad gave them to the dog."