HOG ROAST
‘But I will place this carefully fed pig within the crackling oven; and, I pray, what nicer dish can e’er be given to man.’
Aeschylus, Ancient Greek poet, circa 525–456BC
It is not clear when man first ate roast pig, although there are lots of stories and legends associated with this momentous event. In Europe, it is believed the animal was originally spit-roasted using green twig spits over open fires. As society developed and eating became a ceremonial ritual, the roasting of a whole pig demonstrated abundance and prosperity. A young pig took less time to cook and was sure to be succulent and tender.
Suckling (or sucking) pig is a young pig that has fed only on its mother’s milk and is slaughtered between the ages of two and six weeks. Its meat and fat have a sweeter, and more delicate flavour than that of a fully grown pig.
In Ancient Greece, a piglet was fattened on grape must before slaughter and koiridion (a suckling pig stuffed with herbs and roasted) was a dish reserved for special occasions. Ancient Romans usually marinated the piglet in olive oil, salt and spices (pepper and cumin were the favourite choice), or sometimes boned the suckling pig and stuffed it with a mixture of meats, poultry, vegetables or fruits and spices, before cooking it on a spit. The skin became golden and crisp as the pig cooked and, to prevent it from burning, was covered with papyrus until the pig was cooked through.
Sucking pigs stuffed with various combinations of meat, herbs and spices were an important part of the splendid medieval feasts. Royal cook to the French court, Taillevent (1310–1395) included in his Le Viandier cookbook of 1373 complex instructions for pourcelet farci – suckling pig stuffed with cheese, egg yolks, chopped roast pork, chestnuts and spices, which was sewn up, roasted and basted with vinegar, oil and salt as it cooked on a spit in front of the fire. The delicate skin needed constant basting to prevent it from blistering and burning.
In the seventeenth century, the skin was often pulled off the cooked piglet and a mixture of spices, breadcrumbs and sugar was applied to the fat, which cooked to a crisp coating.
An eighteenth-century Italian recipe suggested stuffing the piglet with fried eels, garlic, herbs and fennel seeds and basting it with oil and water as it cooked on a spit. A sauce of anchovy oil and pistachios accompanied the cooked meat.
In England, Charles Lamb, in his ‘Dissertation Upon Roast Pig’ (1822), held that ‘in the entire realm of edible things, roast pig is the most delicate’, while celebrated diarist Samuel Pepys wrote that ‘there could be nothing better for the digestion and the spirit than pickled oysters, a young roasted pig and good, heavy ale’.
Mrs Beeton in her celebrated Book of Household Management (first published in a bound edition in 1861) gave instructions for preparing a sucking pig, declaring that it ‘should not be more than three weeks old’. It was scalded, the hairs pulled out, the entrails removed, the ears and nostrils thoroughly washed and then the whole pig was washed in cold water and wiped dry. The feet were removed and the animal was ready to be stuffed, rubbed with butter or oil and roasted.
Every pig-eating culture still enjoys spit-roasted pigs, although they are usually reserved for celebratory feasts. The best-known Italian roast pig is porchetta: a boned, whole sucking pig is well seasoned with herbs and spices and spit-roasted for hours. It’s classic festival food and often found at markets and fairs.
The Sardinian porceddu is traditionally cooked in a pit lined with aromatic herbs and covered with rocks. A fire is built upon the rocks, and when it has burned for many hours, the pig is set upon it and covered first with hot coals and then with myrtle branches and the earth is piled back on top. Bandits who once populated the more isolated parts of the island used this method. In another method, a fire is built with aromatic woods such as juniper, myrtle, olive and arbutus. The pig is fastened to a large stick that is pushed into the ground in front of the fire. Once the pig is cooked, it is covered with myrtle leaves and left for 30 minutes or so before carving.
The Spanish and Portuguese are very fond of sucking pig (cochinillo and leitão respectively). In Spain, cochinillo is a speciality of the provinces of Segovia and Avila. A sucking pig, as defined by the Spanish, has fed only on mother’s milk, has never been allowed to run free and is no more than a month old. While suckling its young, the sow feeds on rye, oats, cabbage and potatoes. Sucking pigs are sold in butchers’ shops and markets and are easily recognisable by their white, waxy skin. The piglet is cooked with liberal amounts of garlic and herbs and the fat under the skin melts into the tender, succulent meat as a result of the long, slow cooking. Cochinillo asado, a traditional Castilian meal, features a one-month-old piglet roasted in an earthenware dish.
In Portugal, roast sucking pig is known as leitão assado and is a particular speciality of Mealhada, a town in central Portugal, where the traditional accompaniments are a crisp green salad, orange slices and fried potatoes.
Spanferkel (spit-roasted sucking pig) is served at the Oktoberfest in Germany, where the word also refers to a feast featuring the pig. Throughout Eastern Europe, spit-roasted hog features at celebratory feasts and family occasions. In Georgia, roast sucking pig (gochi) is a popular New Year’s dish: and the crisp ears are given to the most important guest at dinner.
In Poland, prosie pieczone (sucking pig) was the traditional centrepiece of the Easter (swieconka) table and was served at the banquets of the Polish nobility. The piglet was stuffed with herbs, brushed with oil or butter, had a raw potato put into its mouth and was then roasted; after cooking, the potato was removed and replaced with an apple. At Easter, a small painted Easter egg (pisanka) was put into the piglet’s mouth.
In the Caribbean, a whole pig smeared with spices and cooked slowly over a fire made from fragrant allspice wood is known as ‘jerked pork’. Jerk was originally a way of drying and preserving meat created by the Carib and Arawak Indians who inhabited the Caribbean islands before the arrival of the Spanish in the fifteenth century. They slow-cooked their meat with spices in order to preserve it and this method was later refined by the Maroons (former slaves brought to Jamaica from West Africa), who used peppers to liberally season wild boar before cooking it for hours over slow-burning pimento wood until succulent.
The term ‘jerk’ may be an English corruption of the word charqui, a Spanish term for dried meat. Another possibility is linked to the ‘jerking’, or poking, of the meat with a sharp object to produce holes, which were then filled with the spice mixture. Whole pigs are the traditional meat to jerk, but chicken and seafood are now also popular. Everyone has their own unique family recipe for jerk, but there are three essential basic jerk ingredients: allspice, thyme and Scotch Bonnet chillies (extremely fiery and searingly hot, but it’s just not jerk without the heat, although milder chillies can be used instead).
In Cuba, a whole pig is marinated in Seville orange juice and/or lime juice, salt, garlic and oregano and is traditionally served on New Year’s Day. As in the Hawaiian luau (traditional Hawaiian feast), the pig is usually covered with banana leaves and cooked over a fire in a pit.
Pig roasts have long been traditional in the southern United States, and in recent decades hog roasts have become increasingly popular in the United Kingdom, at agricultural shows, large markets and special parties.
I have had many experiences of cooking hogs – and not just the boned-out pieces, so loved by the Italians, but the whole beast. Whether you’re cooking a suckling pig at 5–6kg/11–13lb or an 80kg/176lb large beast to feed in excess of 150 people, it’s a popular tradition the world over. A whole roast pig makes a great centrepiece to any celebration, but it does require thought and preparation. Here are a few tips on how to set about doing it.
In terms of price, finding a supplier to fit your budget can be difficult. If you want to buy a suckling pig, for example, piglets put on a lot of weight very quickly and they can double their weight within weeks, and so if a farmer is selling a small suckling pig he will be looking to get the same amount of money for it as he would for a larger one. Be prepared, therefore, to pay a premium price. Also, make sure you understand what the farmer or producer means by a ‘suckling pig’ – you want one that is still on its mother’s milk and which weighs a maximum of 9kg/20lb. Otherwise larger ones will come down in price proportionally.
The easiest solution is to hire an electric spit roast with a gas burner. There are plenty of companies now who will deliver to your door a machine complete with pig, ready to go. Use their instructions and you cannot go wrong, but do be sure that the pig is of a quality you want. Some suppliers of machines may buy a factory-reared animal, which will not be as flavoursome as a rare breed. Make sure you ask what you are getting.
For a smaller hog it’s fun to create your own fire pit and it is possible to buy either a manual spit, which you place beside the fire pit and turn by hand, or one powered by electricity. In either case, be prepared for standing around for a long time!
The electric spit roast with gas burner presents no problem – just plug it in, fire it up and forget about it. If you want to dig a fire pit, which will produce a better flavour in the meat, the pit should be longer than the pig to be cooked and wide enough to ensure a constant, even heat under the whole pig. You also need to make sure that any spit you make or buy is long enough to comfortably fit the whole pig on to, as the head needs careful cooking too. Some people consider the charred ears a real treat.
Dig your pit about 15cm/6in deep into the ground, making sure it is longer than the pig and about 60cm/24in wide. Build a large fire with good seasoned, dry wood. Once the fire has died down a little and is just hot, place your pig on the spit, making sure that you have carefully trussed the meat and turn the spit on. Cooking is all about look and feel. If the pig is spitting or colouring, then it’s cooking, but it is safest to have a couple of thermometers to hand. You want to keep the temperature of the heat from the fire under the cooking pig at about 120ºC/250ºF. The temperature of the meat when it’s cooked should be just above 63ºC/145ºF at the deepest part of the animal – use a meat thermometer for this: plunge it into the haunch or shoulder by the bone and leave it for a few minutes to register.
The fire, if built with sound wood, will keep a good heat for up to 2 hours. If you feel the need to top it up, add pieces of wood gently so as not to encourage big flames, as this can scorch the piglet.
As regards the preparation of the animal, if you have hired a machine, then just follow the instructions that come with it. You could put the animal in a brine or marinade, but I tend to feel that if you have bought a good rare breed animal, then all it needs is a little preparation the night before you intend to cook it: using a sharp knife such as a Stanley knife, score the pig heavily all over, from the back down to the belly and on the legs and shoulders. Make the cuts about 2cm/¾in apart, then rub in coarse salt and wine vinegar. The next day, just before cooking, brush off any excess salt.
Trussing
As the pig cooks, the meat loosens and shifts which could result in the meat falling off the spit, so it needs to be trussed (tied) to be held together. The spit should go between the thighs, along the inside of the body (just underneath the spine) and out through the mouth. The head, shoulders and legs should be trussed securely using kitchen twine, holding them against each other on the spit. Any excess kitchen twine should be removed to prevent it from burning.
Cooking times will vary depending on the temperature of the flame and the distance of the spit roast from the flame. There are no hard and fast rules. Generally, allow 1 hour for the fire to get hot before you start roasting the pork, then approximately 15–20 minutes per lb/½kg. So, for a 5–6kg/11–13lb hog which should comfortably serve 6–8 people, allow 3½–4½ hours cooking time.
The resting process is important with a whole pig. Once it is cooked, the pig will keep hot for a while, so don’t attempt to eat anything until half an hour after you are happy it is cooked and it has had time to rest.
You can cut the meat directly from the animal on the spit, but you may feel safer placing the cooked pig on a tray or board and carving it in a safe environment. The meat will come easily off the bone. Start with the loin and move on to the legs and shoulder.