Going back a while

Bacon Tasting

We have come a long way in the three years we have been keeping pigs.

I'm still not quite sure how it happened, but on dark February Saturday morning three of us ended up at one of the legendary Tony York Pigs Paradise "Pig Keeping in a day".  It was fascinating and he made it all sound so do-able.  

We spent a good few weeks pondering about how to go about it, planning things quite seriously as we knew it would be a major undertaking but so far, it has been hard work but brilliant fun on so many levels.  We have learnt so much about working the land, working with animals, understanding how to handle and cook meat.

One of the best experiences we have had so far was our very first Bacon tasting, pictured above.  We had managed to take our second batch of pigs to bacon and when we got the meat back I spent most of a blissful weekend eating bacon at every single meal.  We then organized a Bacon Testing Evening with our co-raisers, Alison and Paul Beadle and a couple of our close friends.  

We bought three different bacon rashers from a very well known local butcher, one from a local Lidl and had two of our own bacons.  I knocked up a little questionnaire / feedback form and cooked all the bacon the same.  In short, everybody spotted the least tasty bacon, placed the others according to individual taste, but the outstanding bacon of the night was our Smoked Berkshire.  It was a fantastic result and a GREAT evening.  

Right now as I write this my mouth is watering thinking about how good the meat was, especially after months of wading through waves of mud looking after our animals.  We will try to capture the ethos of how we go about things over our next few entries to try to capture the fun and enjoyment we get from doing this.