I'm brought back to the blog by the appearance of new stock on the holding. Two kune kune pigs turned up today, passed on by a couple who had thought to raise and eat them but now cannot bring themselves to do so. It is good to be keeping pigs again, even if it will not be for long.
The previous owners had told me that these animals were "nearly full grown". But from out of the trailer this afternoon came two of the biggest, fattest pigs I have ever seen. William Cobbett wrote in his 1821 classic 'Cottage Economy' that if a pig can walk a hundred paces straight it is not yet fat enough for slaughter. Even by his standards these animals are more than ready. They both laid down to rest several times on the short journey between trailer and pen, the boar even needing a nap at one point. But our tastes, and nutritional needs, have changed. In centrally heated comfort the need or desire for fatty pork and bacon is diminished. During the winter our forebears would have eaten all they could to sustain themselves in the cold. Even in my lifetime the fat found on the butcher's bacon has been shrinking to almost nothing, as houses are kept ever warmer through the dark months.
Now there is nothing wrong with a little fat on the meat, and to my taste meat today comes with too little of it. Fat brings the flavour, and it's especially delicious on home-reared meat. But these pigs are a step too far. Looking at them I can only imagine that the meat would be hard to find for the fat. They have been kept in the lap of luxury, a porcine paradise. Tales of the food they have been fed beggar belief.
So far from the 'finishing' (fattening) I had been expecting to do, I am now running a hog's health farm. These swine are on a diet, one month to lean up before, well, you know what's coming don't you?
