LOVE LOCAL
WHOLE HOG
T e Using every piece of the pig…
is unforgivingly committed to the land, her pigs and her customers. Overseeing the whole journey, from lovingly rearing her free-range Gloucester Old Spot pigs, to producing the fi nest cuts of meat, making sausages and curing meats the traditional way, Donna is extremely passionate about making use of the whole hog...
P If you enjoy being a carnivore,
every juicy, meaty mouthful, and we are to rear pigs for the table, they deserve to live, at the utmost, a free-range, foraging life with the sun on their backs, nurtured in fl avour with apples and acorns. We also owe these porcine beasts the respect to make use of every part and not let a bit go to waste. As the saying goes “you can use everything but the oink”. It is possible to conjure up
great ways to feed a crowd cost-eff ectively, ethically, and surprisingly, you can fi nd some very tasty recipes on the way. Traditionally, when a pig
was slaughtered, every part of that animal was used for food production. We need to be just as conscious of food waste and food shortages. T e blood can
48 | THE WEST COUNTRY FOODLOVER
assionate and dedicated pig farmer, Donna Lucking, from Ellises Farm,
“…take inspiration from methods
long forgotten, used daily by skilled butchers and Farmers’ wives, and bring them back into use…”
be used for black pudding and boudin noir, and the meat utilised for fresh cuts or preserved by methods of curing and drying. Bacon, salamis, chorizos and cured meats can be made using a variety of methods from all over the world. T e back fat can also be rendered (slowly heated and melted) to make lard. Take a look back to the past
for recipes, take inspiration from methods long forgotten and used daily by skilled butchers and farmers' wives, and bring them back into use before they slip away as unimaginable snippets of history. In the old butchery books we reference for our recipes, we
have found methods for pâtés and meat pastes, including ‘savoury duck’ which contains no duck at all but is based on pig rind and liver with spices. T ey even go as far as to suggest methods to make soap with the fats leſt over. Off al, the internal organs, are
overlooked as an ingredient and all too oſt en our noses are turned up; thoughts going back to school dinners and tough liver. T e liver, heart, kidneys, tongue and cheeks can be turned into faggots. We are seeing a real revival of popularity of these tasty off al, we off er sage and onion parcels wrapped in the traditional cawl fat from the pig’s stomach on
our stall at the farmers' markets we attend. T ey are always a sell out as customers seek out comfort food evoking childhood memories of their mother's homemade versions served with creamy, buttery mash, onion gravy and mushy peas. Off al can be bought at a
butchers shop relatively cheaply. T ey may sometimes use the term ‘pluck’, the collective term for all the off al. A good butcher will be buying in whole carcasses of meat or sourcing straight from a farm, and will want to be selling all of the animal not just the popular cuts. T ey will be happy to advise. So you've got the family coming
round, a crowd to feed. Give them the whole hog experience. Start with a few nibbles while they wait for the main event. T e Spanish make tapas similar to pork scratchings from pigs lips
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