modom (palindrome guy) > wrote:

> (Victor Sack) wrote:
>
> >Here is a nice article by the estimable Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
> >about bacon among other things; there is a recipe, too:
>
<http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/foodanddrink/hughfearnleywhittingstall/story/0,,1945134,00.html>.
>
> Thanks, Victor. I don't know enough about heritage hog breeds to make
> a judgment. In that area I rely on expert guidance.
> Fearnley-Whittingsall recommends Gloucester Old Spots, Saddlebacks or
> Middle Whites, but my local supplier offers meat from red wattle hogs.
> He has an MS in animal husbandry, so I'll take his word for it till
> better evidence comes along. And this may be a matter of
> transAtlantic local climate and breed issues, anyway.

Fearnley-Whittingstall mentions those particular breeds just as an
example of those he raises himself. In his wonderful, encyclopaedic
_The River Cottage Meat Book_ he lists a few more. More importantly, in
the book he says the following:
<quote> I didn't know just how good pork could be until I raised my own
pigs. Now I sometimes imagine a global band of smallholders and
subsistence farmers, from the forests and lakes of Savoie or the
Auvergne to the sweaty jungles of Vietnam or Korea, from the mountains
of Corsica to the foothills of the Chilean Andes, whose pigs all root
and forage freely and are fattened up on whatever surplus scraps of
cereals or roots, fruits or vegetables come to hand. We all have one
thing in common: we know what pork is meant to taste like. </quote>

BTW, your supplier is planning to raise Gloucester Old Spot, too. See
<http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M9225?p=2>.

Victor