Why Real Food Tastes Better - keeping pigs

Following on from my talk with our Scoff customer over the no excess salt in our food (see previous BLOG entry) it occurred to me that Sarah and I had discovered this for ourselves whilst living in Devon.

(Porky left and Fizzy with Tom at feeding time)

We were inspired by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage series. We had 3 small kids and Sarah and I decided one day that as we had some land on which to keep some pigs (and Hugh said it was easy) this would give me something to do and stop me getting bored!

We bought two weaners from a local rare breed producer http://www.smallicombe.com/ where we had attended a day's training and tuition in how to keep pigs- a British Lop the children called Fizzy Dizzy (pictured here with Tom at feeding time) and a Berkshire named Porky.

Retrospectively this became a defining time in our lives and really it was this first hand experience of 'real farming' - albeit on a small scale that has developed part of our SCOFF ethos.

Our two new family members were duly collected (with some help from our friend Alan - who was rather more experienced at handling the noisy additions than me

We reared our two pigs - Porky leaving first as she was the 'porker' (a pig bred for Pork rather than bacon) and Fizzy a little later on as he was to be for Bacon, Pancetta etc. We bought our Pig Sty over the internet at http://www.pig-arks.com/ and when it was delivered the guy said to us:

"Ever kept Pigs before?"
"No" we answered
"Best leave it a few weeks before eating them - you can get very attached ot pigs and it will probably stick in your throat if youb eat them too quickly"

Great we thought - and the kids have named them - this will be an interesting exercise!

The End Result

Well - the end result was astonishing. Amy and Tess even made sausages in our Devon Development kitchen from their own pigs (Amy refused to eat sausages up until she made her own from her own pig and now orders sausage and mash on every occasion possible - and compares it to her own!)

The quality of meat from an animal that is bred to mature slowly is amazing. You don't need to add anything to bring out the taste (or to mask the lack of taste as it so often the case with commercially bred meat). We ate Porky within a few days of her being slaughtered and the kids never battered an eyelid. We froze the meat and even 12 months on it tastes better than any you can find from commercial breeds.

Commercial manufacturers of Pork products ofetn have to add excessive amounts of salt because the meat they use - cheap, intensively reared pork is tasteless. It seems like a no brainer to us what we should choose.