Roast pig

“ A pig for roasting or baking should be small and fat. Take out the inwards, and cut off the first joint of the feet, and boil them till tender, then chop them. Prepare a dressing of bread soaked soft, the water squeezed out, and the bread mashed fine, season it with salt, pepper, and sweet herbs, add a little butter, and fill the pig with the dressing. Rub a little butter on the outside of the pig, to prevent its blistering. Bake or roast it from two hours and a half, to three hours. ”

“ For if all this praise is to be lavished on plain, fresh, immature, roast pig, what adjectives shall we find to do justice to that riper, richer, more subtle and sustaining viand, broiled bacon? On roast pig a man can not work ”

“ A pig will take from two to three hours to roast, according to the size; when it is done, pour the water out in a skillet; season it and thicken it with flour and water. To make hash gravy, put the liver and heart to boil in three pints of water; after they have boiled an hour, chop them very fine, put them back in the pot and stir in a thickening of flour and water, with salt, pepper, parsley and thyme. Have the gravies in separate tureens on either side of the pig. Apple sauce and cold slaw are almost indispensable with pig. ”

“ Roll the pig up like brawn, boil till tender, and then throw it into an earthen pan with salt and water. This will whiten and season the flesh; for no salt must be put into the boiling for fear of turning it black. Then take a quart of this broth and a quart of white wine, boil them together, and put in three or four bay-leaves: when cold, season your pig, and put it into this sauce. It will keep three months.
Pig, to roast.
Chop the liver small by itself: mince blanched bacon, capers, truffles, anchovy, mushrooms, sweet-herbs and garlic. Season and blanch the whole. Fill your pig with it ”

“ In Germany, where one gets not only hams of the best quality, but excellent roast pork, many others besides farmers have taken to raising pigs. In 1873 there were only 7,124,088 pigs in the country; in 1907 there were over 22,000,000. The number of sheep has decreased in about the same proportion because three hogs can be raised by a peasant where he could not graze one sheep.
Pigs are particularly profitable because they can be fed largely on kitchen refuse and unsalable skim milk and because a pig "will produce a pound of meat from a far less weight of food than will either sheep or cattle." ”

“ Williams and Calvert, missionaries, for many long years, among the Fijians, state, in their recently published work, that those unsophisticated children of Nature eat "long pig,"—as they call, with graceful humor, roast-man, in contradistinction to "short-pig," by which they designate our squealing fellow-roasters,—from three different motives.—When a chief has a gala-day, or desires to signal his arrival by a right royal feast, it is considered befitting to slaughter some men, to let the blood run in the path of royalty, and to have on the table some roast-homme. ”

“ Mode.—Wipe the birds very dry, season them inside with pepper and salt, and put about 3/4 oz. of butter into the body of each: this makes them moist. Put them down to a bright fire, and baste them well the whole of the time they are cooking (they will be done enough in from 20 to 30 minutes) ; garnish with fried parsley, and serve with a tureen of parsley and butter. Bread-sauce and gravy, the same as for roast fowl, are exceedingly nice accompaniments to roast pigeons, as also egg-sauce. ”

“ Without being very demonstrative, the parents like them well enough, and the child is not at all hardly used—although, be it remembered, the family pig has a deeper place in the adults’ affections. In times of stress it is to be feared it is the pig that is first considered, probably because it is so important an article of diet. The devotion to this animal goes far further than that of Pat, for it is not unusual to see a Papuan woman acting as foster-mother to a young pig. ”

“ We breed and fatten a large number of pigs on the clearings round the shanty. These we butcher in batches of six or eight, as required, and turn into salt pork, bacon, and ham. We have occasionally sent a cask or two of pork, some flitches or hams, to market; but as a rule we consume our pigs on the farm. Pig-meat is most reliable as a staple. One does not tire of it so utterly as one does of either mutton or beef, if one of these be the invariable daily food.
Beef we rarely see in our shanty. The steers we breed are too valuable to be used by ourselves; they have to go to market. ”

“ He does no harm to the field if not left there too long and it does good to him. In fattening pigs corn is freely given. It is not best to give corn alone, but it makes a good dessert after he has had the run of the pasture or clover field, and is the best fattener when he is being put in order for the market.
In visiting a farm the pig-pen is one of the things we are shown. It is not a pleasant place for a morning call, for the smell is not a sweet perfume and the mire in which the pig rolls is not nice. We are apt to go away with the feeling that this animal is a dirty brute. ”

“ If the fat is rough with little kernels, the pig has had a disease resembling the measles, and to eat it is poisonous. Pigs that [217] have short legs, and thick necks, are the best. Pigs fed entirely on slop make very bad pork. They should be kept up for at least two months, fed with corn, and not allowed during the time of fattening to eat any sort of trash. No animal tastes more of its food than a pig. If allowed to eat the garbage of fish, they will not only have a fishy taste, but a smell of fish so intolerable, when cooking, that such pork cannot be endured in the house. ”

“ More rarely a fine cow, or a yoke of oxen, attracts a [169] circle of connoisseurs; then the patois becomes more fluent, and the gestures more animated, and the fists of the interested parties are seen flourishing unpleasantly near the disdainful noses of the critics.
The prolonged and penetrating squeal of that pig in the Rue des Cultivateurs reminds me that this interesting animal figures largely in the scenes of market-day. Pork being an important article of peasant diet, Mr. Piggy is always abroad on Monday and contributes largely to the general éclat. ”

“ Meat and game they only eat occasionally; they prefer jabutís, or land-tortoises, monkeys, inambus (Tinamus sp.) , toucans, and the smaller species of wild pig (Dicotyles torquatus) . But they will not eat the large wild pig (D. labiatus) , the anta (Tapirus Americanus) , or the white-rumped mutun (Crax globicera?) . They consume great quantities of peppers (species of Capsicum) , preferring the small red ones, which are of excessive pungency: when they have no fish, they boil several pounds of these peppers in a little water, and dip their bread into the fiery soup thus formed. ”

“ If not fat, it is unfit to eat. To be in perfection, a sucking pig should be eaten the day it is killed, or its goodness and tenderness is impaired every hour. It requires great care in roasting, and constant watching. The custom of roasting a very young pig has now gone much, into disuse, it being found that [221] baking answers the purpose equally well or better, and is far less troublesome. ”

“ I know how important pigs are just now, and we are making arrangements to raise our share of them, but that doesn't make me like them a bit better. Until this year we have contented ourselves with raising an occasional pig for our own use, but when preparing for this year's meat supply I felt expansive and bought a couple of plump little pigs. I admit that I like little pigs—both alive and roasted. Their perpetual smile, which even a session in the oven can't take off, appeals to me. But a full-grown, able-bodied pig is another matter—especially at feeding time. ”

“ It is plain to see that whatever may be found of ill account in the pig is due to the contaminating influence of man. A wiry, well-groomed wild pig is a decent citizen of the animal community, unpleasantly ready with his tusks, of course, but clearly dignified and with intelligence. ”

“ They are the city scavengers, these pigs, ugly brutes they are; having for the most part scanty brown backs, like the lids of old horse-hair trunks, spotted with unwholesome black blotches; they have long, gaunt legs too, and such peaked snouts that if one of them could be persuaded, to sit for his profile, nobody would recognize it for a pig's likeness; they are never attended upon, or fed, or driven, or caught, but are thrown upon their own resources in early life, and become preternaturally knowing in consequence; every pig knows where he lives much better than any body could tell him. ”

“ Amongst these ideas which the old-fashioned ones looked upon as fads, was that of feeding pigs of all ages and especially fatting pigs on a certain proportion of vegetable food. Experiments have conclusively proved that the substitution of some 10 per cent of vegetable matter in place of an equal amount of meal or concentrated food, does not result in the slightest reduction in the live weight gain of the fatting pig, and further that the old idea that a limited quantity of vegetable food fed to a fatting pig tended to render the pork soft and to waste in the cooking was not founded on fact. ”

“ Wherever there are cows and a garden, pigs should be kept; as skim-milk and buttermilk, with the refuse of a garden, are almost sufficient to maintain a pig. Pigs are unlike most other animals, as they fatten soonest on sour food; they should, however, be kept clean, and in many places, I am told, the cottagers rub them with a broom. Sows are very apt to destroy their young when they are littered with long straw, as the pigs sometimes hide themselves in it for warmth, and are trodden upon accidentally or smothered by their mother. ”

“ Two litters are produced in one year, as pigs are usually weaned at two months old, and the sow will take the boar at from three days to a week after the pigs are removed, according to condition. A convenient sty to hold five or six pigs has a southern aspect, and consists of a covered compartment and outer court, each 10 ft. square. When the animals are fed outside the inner court is kept clean and dry, and there the pigs be. The labouring man's pig is his bank, and is fed on scraps, small potatoes and waste products. ”

“ If in ordinary cases feeding the sow three times daily is persisted in, the same quantity of food given should simply be distributed over the three feedings, as an excess of food is only less a mistake than underfeeding.
Three of the most common troubles with young pigs are diarrhœa, fits, and loss of the tail. There is a belief amongst many old pigmen that every litter of pigs is bound to have at least one attack of diarrhœa ere it is weaned. They look upon it as a fatality which is certain to eventuate, no matter what steps may be taken. ”

“ The Jews and Mohammedans will not eat it, and look upon it as an unclean animal. As there are nearly two hundred millions of these people on the earth, there are at least that many who do not eat pork. But aside from these, pork is eaten by the great mass of the people of the earth.
The pig is not an American animal. All our pigs, and they are many millions in number, came from animals brought from Europe. We [172] have here the peccary, a kind of little pig, very savage and dangerous, as it goes in herds and attacks every man or other animal it meets. ”

“ A very gross but useful animal, which can, by feeding, be stuffed into such a state of fatness as only one who has seen a Christmas cattle show in England could believe it possible for beast to acquire. Dean Ramsay, in a happy anecdote, refers to a good quality of the sow as food. He tells, that a Scottish minister had been persuaded to keep a pig, and that the good wife had been duly instructed in the mysteries of black-puddings, pork-chops, pig's-head, and other modes of turning poor piggy to account. ”

“ It is his owner more than himself that is to blame. If he had his own way he would be clean enough. Like all thick-skinned animals the pig loves to wallow in the mire and cover himself with mud to protect him against insects. But left to himself he will keep his sleeping place clean. Those who know how to keep pigs soon learn this and supply the animals with dry and clean places to sleep in.
A Fat Berkshire Hog. A Monarch of the Sty
Pork, or the flesh of the pig, has long been used as meat. ”

“ Sucking Pig is merely plain roasted, stuffed with veal stuffing, but before putting it upon the spit it requires to be floured and rubbed very dry, otherwise the skin would not eat crisp; the usual method of serving it is to cut off the head, and divide the body and head of the pig in halves lengthwise; pour over some sauce made of the brains and a little brown sauce, or of white melted butter, nicely seasoned with salt, pepper, and sugar ”

“ It should never be used the same day that it is killed.
First prepare the stuffing of the liver, heart and haslets of the pig, stewed, seasoned, and chopped. Mix with these an equal quantity of boiled potatoes mashed; add a large spoonful of butter, with some hard-boiled eggs, parsley and thyme, chopped fine, pepper and salt.
Scald the pig on the inside, dry it and rub with pepper and 134 salt, fill and sew up. Bend the fore legs under the body, the hind legs forward, under the pig, and skewer to keep in position. Place in a large baking-pan, pour over one quart of boiling water. ”

“ But only the male pigs are esteemed, the females are of account only as a necessary instrument [96] for propagating the species, and nobody takes care of them; so they run wild, and have to look out for themselves. They are much happier than the males, which are tied all their lives to a pole under a little roof; they are carefully fed, but this, their only pleasure, is spoilt by constant and terrific toothache, caused by cruel man, who has a horrible custom of knocking out the upper eye-teeth of the male pig. ”