pig and pork
29 February 2008 by colouritgreen
It’s wandered through our minds, to keep pigs. Mostly because pigs were obviously kept here, big time, in the past. Unfortunately the set up was clearly an intensive one, with concrete sties and a boar pen; small enclosures and run down. Not our way, but still perhaps some of it could be used. And keeping pigs is the obvious thing to get into if you have a small area of land and want to become more self-sufficient. The problem is, I don’t know much about them.
The first place to start is a pig keeping course.. and we have booked one. I don’t even know if I like pigs, and this should tell us.
But the other area is the cooking of pork. We don’t tend to eat much actual pork, but do like pig products - bacon, ham, sausages. Himself has made sausages in the past, and a desire to make his own salami and chorizo, and we like a bit of boiled or roasted ham and the pea soup that follows, made with the stock.. …. but just pork.. we have a lot of learning to do.
My mum said how they used to have pork hock. So I experimented . A cheap cut, I found just one is ample to make a hearty lunch of pork hock and haricot bean stew for all three of us, and is really simple.
Just the job, for a miserable rainy day.
