Before Thanksgiving was a National Holiday, November was known as the start of the slaughtering season. For many, that meant pigs. The English have several proverbs that are timely:
- Acorns make the best Bacon
- The Pig is only good on the Plate.
Acorns, also known as mast (which can be all sorts of nuts) are readily available in New England. Pigs are noteworthy in that they are cheap, easy to transport, and able to live just about anywhere. Sir Francis Bacon recommends them as a commodity to carry when starting plantations. Pigs were among the first livestock that was brought to Plymouth Colony.
If you’ve ever spent time with a pig, you’ll soon figure out that Wilbur, the hammy friend of Charlotte the wise and patient spider, was truly SOME pig, because he wasn’t at all like other pigs. Pigs are curious, large and like to get their nose into everyone’s business. Literally – they root about in everything, and often lead with their noses. And they have no good manners. And sharp teeth and sharp hooves.
And now let us take a Homer Simpson moment and ponder the wonder that is BAAACOOOON
If it weren’t for pigs – and porkets, and hogs, and boars, and sows, and shotes, and all the swine family – there wouldn’t be bacon. Sometimes in the 16th and 17th centuries bacon means fresh pork, not just salted.
But before bacon, we can have sausages……
Take the largest of your chines of pork, and that which is called a list, and first with your knife cut the lean thereof into thin slices, and then shred small those slices, and then spread it over the bottom of a dish or wooden platter; then take the fat of the chine and the list, and cut it in the self same manner, and spread it upon the lean, and then cut more lean, and spread it on the fat, and thus do one lean upon another till all the pork be shred, observing to begin and end with the lean; then with your sharp knife scotch it through and through divers ways, and mix it well together: then take good store of sage, and shred it exceeding small and mix it with the flesh, then give it a good season of pepper and salt, the take the farmes made as long as is possible, and not cut in pieces as for puddings, and first blow them up to make the meat slip, and then fill them: which done, with threads divide them into several links as you please, then hang them up in you chimney clean kept, where they may take air of the fire, and let them dry there at least four days before any be eaten; and when they are served up, let them be either fried or broiled on the gridiron, or else roasted about a capon.
- 1631. Markham, Gervase. The English Housewife. Michael Best ed. McGill-Queen’s University Press: Montreal. 1986. pp.73-4.