After Lady Chef's Lingfield win in June 2004, Tony had a really splendid idea and decided to buy me, out of the £4,000 he took off the bookies, a present of two large black organic sows in pig. I was so excited at the forthcoming offspring that I was up early each morning to see whether a litter had arrived. The following month, the first sow produced fourteen piglets and a month later, the second produced a litter of twelve piglets. I quickly found that, at £14 for a 25 kilo bag of organic feed, 10½ bags of which fed the little darlings for just one week, fattening to slaughter soon became a priority! So, at five months, three little piggies went to Hatherleigh and came back ready for the walk in fridge.
Once I had got to grips with breaking down the carcasses, the loins were soon being enjoyed as a main course, the brawn as a delicious starter and gluten free sausages became a popular request at breakfast. The one thing no one had warned me about was just how quickly these little darlings would reach sexual maturity! The original offspring have now had their own boys and girls and we now have a head count of a mere 116 pigs, so, having already slaughtered 7, a more capacious use had to be found for them and fast. At the beginning of last week, thirty-five new piglets had opened their little eyes for the first time. For those of you interested, the gestation time for pigs is three weeks, three months and three days.
Whilst it is unlikely to make the Bestseller list, 'Adventures of a Bacon Curer' has quickly risen to the top of mine. After an engrossing read, I promptly phoned the publisher and was forwarded the details of the author. To say this gentleman has had an interesting life is something of an understatement - In a nutshell, Maynard Davies is the last surviving traditional bacon curer in the country.
Unable to read or write and told by his teachers that he had absolutely no career prospects, unphased, Maynard soon began learning the skills of the old master curers of the Black Country - His motivation; making 'good food for good people.' With a clutch of recipes devised after a vibrant career working in both the UK and US, Maynard visited Percy's at the beginning of the month for two days intensive tuition. After covering everything from dry curing to building a smokehouse, I was left truly inspired with the will to make the best bacon in the land! This weekend the first hams will be ready for our guests to try and next month I plan to make salami and pork pies.