A meat raffle is a tradition of raffling off

meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...

, often in pubs and bars in Australia, in some areas of Britain and the US, and in Western Canada. A meat raffle is also sometimes called a meat draw. In some cases the raffle is operated by a designated charity, though in Britain most of the proceeds are spent on prizes and the raffle is run as a social occasion and a method of enticing customers into a local pub. The meat ranges in animal and cut and often comes from local

butchers A butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat, or participate within any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat and poultry for sale in retail or wholesale food establishm ...

. In the UK, a typical meat raffle would have approximately 25-30 tickets sold at £1 each, though there is considerable variation and some raffles are much larger. Depending on the specific raffle, when a winning number is called the winner can either pick their cut of meat or opt for a gift certificate. Also simply known as a meat tray, the tradition is well known in Australian and New Zealand pubs. The trays of meat raffled vary in content: a barbecue style mix of steaks, lamb chops, sausages etc. is the most common, however "breakfast trays" (bacon, eggs, sausages) and "seafood trays" (prawns, oysters, mussels) are also common. Meat trays are usually raffled to raise money for local sporting teams, often those associated with the particular pub the raffle occurs in. The proceeds often help fund the team's end of season trip. Care must be taken with seafood trays given the propensity for the contents to spoil in the heat as the lucky winner continues drinking; often a friendly publican will store the tray in the fridge until the winner is sufficiently refreshed and ready to head home. An Australian variant of the meat raffle is the chook raffle, where a chicken is raffled off. A Canadian variant popular primarily in the Sudbury area is "Porketta Bingo", in which a traditional Italian

porchetta Porchetta () is a savory, fatty, and moist boneless pork roast of Italian culinary tradition. The carcass is deboned and spitted or roasted traditionally over wood for at least eight hours, fat and skin still on. In some traditions, porchetta ...

is given as a prize in a card game as a fundraiser for local

minor hockey Minor hockey is an umbrella term for amateur ice hockey which is played below the junior age level. Players are classified by age, with each age group playing in its own league. The rules, especially as it relates to body contact, vary from cla ...

leagues."Sudbury’s signature dish is porketta"
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Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...

'', January 9, 2012. Part of the interval at the

BDO World Darts Championship The WDF World Darts Championship is a world championship competition in darts, organised by the World Darts Federation. It would previously organised by the British Darts Organisation (BDO), who held it 43 times from 1978 to 2020. The champio ...

included a meat raffle to raise funds for youth teams. The

Dave Dave may refer to: Film, television, and theater * ''Dave'' (film), a 1993 film starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver * ''Dave'' (musical), a 2018 stage musical adaptation of the film * Dave (TV channel), a digital television channel in the ...

TV comedy show ''

Compete for the Meat ''Al Murray's Compete for the Meat'' (sometimes promoted as just ''Compete for the Meat'') is a British comedy quiz show, where the contestants compete for a frozen chicken, while the second placed team gets sausages. It was hosted by comedian ...

'', hosted by

Al Murray Alastair James Hay Murray (born 10 May 1968) is an English comedian, actor, musician and writer from Hammersmith. In 2003, he was listed in ''The Observer'' as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy, and in 2007 he was voted the 16th gr ...

, is loosely based on the concept of a meat raffle.

References

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External links

Humorous NYTimes article

Meat Raffles & the Minnesota Gambling Control Board
Minnesota culture Australian culture British traditions Meat Lotteries Canadian traditions