I won’t go into all the gory details but we were lucky enough this year to be able to buy a live pig and take it right through from that state to lovely tasty sausages state!
A local pig farmer sold us the massive nearly 200kg beast and we set to work with our friends making not only English style sausages but Italian ones too, also ones with the liver and heart in, roasting joints, spare ribs, pancetta, lonzo (the loin cured and dried like pancetta), loads of salami, tender little fillet bits, brawn, black pudding and last but not least two proscuitto (proscuitti?!) – one from the hind leg and one from the foreleg, the latter ready late this summer!
At the end of it all the fat was all boiled up and we now have litres of lovely piggy fat (great for roast potatoes) and lots of little crispy bits flavoured with pepper and bay that are a bit like pork scratchings.
It was a great privilege to be able to watch and learn how this was done from start to finish, drawing on the expertise of local people, handed down from generation to generation.
We’ve already tried some of the sausages (delicious!) and look forward to trying all the other things with guests when they come to stay.
