Where to buy liver, kidney, heart and bones

Liver, kidney, heart and oxtail are cheaper than muscle meat and harder to find, which is a strange combination given that they were ordinary British food within living memory. Here is where they actually are.

Supermarkets

The large stores of all four big chains carry lamb's liver and chicken livers in plastic tubs, usually near the chicken or in the meat aisle's less glamorous corner. Ox liver appears less often and is worth grabbing when it does. Hearts, kidneys and oxtail turn up in some stores and not others, and the pattern changes without warning.

Frozen chicken livers and frozen lamb's kidney are common and perfectly good. Frozen is often the better buy for liver because you are not racing a use-by date.

Ask at the meat counter rather than the shelf. Staff can usually order a case of something that is not on display, and it costs nothing to ask.

Butchers

A proper butcher will have liver, kidney and heart as a matter of course, and will get you ox cheek, bone marrow, tongue or tripe with a few days' notice. This is the single most reliable route, and the prices are usually lower than the supermarket's tubs.

The script is short: ask what offal they have this week, ask what they can order, and ask when their delivery day is. Once they know you will buy it, they order more.

Halal butchers

Excellent for liver, kidney, oxtail, trotters and whole animals, usually at lower prices, and often open on days when other shops are shut. The same goes for kosher butchers if there is one locally. If your reason for being there is nose to tail, this is where the whole animal is.

Asian and Caribbean supermarkets

Oxtail, tripe, tendon, liver, chicken feet, fish heads and bone for broth, generally cheaper than anywhere else and in larger packs. If you want bones for stock, this is the aisle.

The labelling is often minimal, so use your eyes and your nose, and check dates carefully. Staff will usually tell you which day the fresh deliveries arrive.

Farm shops, farmers' markets and box schemes

The best route to liver from an animal you know something about. Farm shops that sell their own beef will sell the offal from their own animals at a price that embarrasses the supermarket, and they will often throw in bones for free if you ask.

Box schemes and online meat retailers deliver frozen offal, sometimes only as part of a larger order, sometimes in mixed boxes. Delivery costs eat the saving unless you are buying a lot at once.

What to do in the first month

Buy liver once a week and cook it once a week. Keep a bag of bones in the freezer and make broth when it is full. Ask one butcher what they can order.

That is the whole system, and it costs less than doing nothing, because the cuts that need asking for are the cuts nobody else is buying.