Rather you than me. You remember the old saying that starts “You can take a horse to water…”? In comparison with this serving suggestion, that’s a sunny, quiet, calm, walk in the park.
I came across this recipe whilst looking at this lovely old wood engraving by Reynolds Stone which led me in turn (back, again) to the very wonderful writings at Spitalfields Life and a description there of the slaughter and cooking of a whole “pigg” via Thomas Newington’s “A butler’s recipe book” from 1719, with a (1935) foreword by a food writer I’d never previously come across, Ambrose Heath, an English journalist, recipe & author of close to a 100 or so cookbooks between the 1930s and 1960s.
Here it is; rather sparse. Short, succinct and very much to the point though.
HOW TO KILL & ROAST A PIGG
Take your Pigg and hold the head down in a Payle of cold Watter untill strangeled, then hang him up buy the heals and fley him, then open him, then chine him down the back as you doe a porker first cuting of his head, then cut him in fower quarters, then lard two of the quarters with lemon peele and other two with tops of Time, then spit and roast them. The head requeares more roasting than the braines with a little Sage and grave for sauce.
This first sentence is insane though. Have you ever tried to hold a pig down, even just to try and stop it going where it wants to go? Or simply tried wrapping your arms around a wriggling piglet? Ain’t going to happen. Getting the proverbial horse to drink from the stream is orders of magnitude easier than trying to drown a pig in a bucket of water. Really, seriously kids, don’t try this one at home. Or on the farm. You’ll lose.
The rest of the recipe sounds good though, mind.