Eldritch
05-25-2009, 10:00 AM
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2009/5/19/1242731423324/Alex-Renton-with-his-chil-001.jpg
When the Maasai of East Africa kill a cow, the herdsman first coaxes it to the ground and then lies beside the animal, stroking and calming it. He whispers in its ear to explain why it must die and asks its forgiveness. Then he smothers it. I'd planned to do something similar when our pig Spidey's time came, but I didn't get the chance. To start with, smothering is not acceptable humane practice in the modern British slaughterhouse.
What I would have told him is that, while his death was ignoble, the butchering would be glorious. A food hero with proper respect for good pork was flying in all the way from Italy to do the honours. And we, who had fed him and visited him, were going to enjoy every bit of him. In turning Spidey into food we were going to bide by Nose to Tail St John chef Fergus Henderson's wise dictum: "If you're going to kill an animal, it seems only polite to use the whole thing."
An hour or so into the job of chopping him up, we broke for lunch. And while Spidey is still with us in the form of salamis, bacon, a whole host of roasting cuts and some coppa ham that I'm very excited about, that lunch was his finest hour so far. We ate it round the table in Chris and Denise Walton's farmhouse, with Renato Toros and a bunch of Slow Foodies from Friuli in northern Italy, who had come over to see what the Scots do with pigs.
The Italians cooked. We ate the liver and the cheeks, sliced and fried with onions, juniper, bay and a little white wine; a traditional Pig-butchering Day meal, when the offal and the parts that can't be cured are eaten. We drank a crisp white from the Veneto, and on the side each of us had a piece of home-baked bread and a frittata made with the pig's brain. It was noisy, jolly, filling - a proper worker's meal. After it we went back to turn the lean meat into salsicce and salami.
Read more. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/24/pork-rearing-organic-farming)
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2009/5/19/1242738264678/Spidey-gets-butchered-001.jpg
"Alex Renton with his children and Spidey, post-slaughter. Photograph: Murdo Macleod". A special moment for the whole family, I'm sure. :rolleyes:
When the Maasai of East Africa kill a cow, the herdsman first coaxes it to the ground and then lies beside the animal, stroking and calming it. He whispers in its ear to explain why it must die and asks its forgiveness. Then he smothers it. I'd planned to do something similar when our pig Spidey's time came, but I didn't get the chance. To start with, smothering is not acceptable humane practice in the modern British slaughterhouse.
What I would have told him is that, while his death was ignoble, the butchering would be glorious. A food hero with proper respect for good pork was flying in all the way from Italy to do the honours. And we, who had fed him and visited him, were going to enjoy every bit of him. In turning Spidey into food we were going to bide by Nose to Tail St John chef Fergus Henderson's wise dictum: "If you're going to kill an animal, it seems only polite to use the whole thing."
An hour or so into the job of chopping him up, we broke for lunch. And while Spidey is still with us in the form of salamis, bacon, a whole host of roasting cuts and some coppa ham that I'm very excited about, that lunch was his finest hour so far. We ate it round the table in Chris and Denise Walton's farmhouse, with Renato Toros and a bunch of Slow Foodies from Friuli in northern Italy, who had come over to see what the Scots do with pigs.
The Italians cooked. We ate the liver and the cheeks, sliced and fried with onions, juniper, bay and a little white wine; a traditional Pig-butchering Day meal, when the offal and the parts that can't be cured are eaten. We drank a crisp white from the Veneto, and on the side each of us had a piece of home-baked bread and a frittata made with the pig's brain. It was noisy, jolly, filling - a proper worker's meal. After it we went back to turn the lean meat into salsicce and salami.
Read more. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/24/pork-rearing-organic-farming)
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2009/5/19/1242738264678/Spidey-gets-butchered-001.jpg
"Alex Renton with his children and Spidey, post-slaughter. Photograph: Murdo Macleod". A special moment for the whole family, I'm sure. :rolleyes: