I was holding a pig-out for friends: a grand dinner with a startlingly well-balanced menu, so long as it was pig. We started with a pig’s liver and lean meat terrine, encased in trotter jelly and the strutto fat, and served with capers and gherkins. On top I laid snippets of Spideypig’s ear, brined for five days, and fried till they were crisp. That went down all right. Then there was a bonne bouche of roast pork fillet slices, with a spicy apple sauce. Gone in a second. Finally, served on a mound of puy lentils which I’d boiled in pork stock, the great baby’s arms of the cotechini. And they scoffed the lot of them – the sausages surprisingly pungent for something made largely of skin and fat. Everyone got a going-home present of half a dozen salsicce. I think it was the best dinner party I’ve ever cooked.
And what of the children, you might wonder. There have been neither tears nor nightmares. They’ve declared Spideypig’s bacon very good – my son, who likes to cook breakfast on Saturday, is impressed that when you put it in the pan there’s no need to add any cooking oil. And no evil white gunk comes out. He thinks roast pork may be a competitor for his usual favourite meat: beef steak, well done. And my daughter? As we drove home from the pig-butchering she looked out of the window at the first of the spring lambs. “Can we get a lamb? Please!” she asked. We waited expectantly for her next line. “We could eat him.”
Grumpy From Birth But Vegan Since 1976
Welcome to Grumpy Vegan
- Kim Stallwood is an independent scholar and author on animal rights. His forthcoming book, Animal Dharma, explores what it means to care deeply about animals. Starting in 1976, he has held leadership positions with some of the world’s foremost organisations in the UK and US, including CIWF, BUAV, PETA, The Animals’ Agenda, Animals and Society Institute and Minding Animals International. A vegetarian since 1974 when as a student he worked in a chicken slaughterhouse. A vegan since 1976. His evil twin is the Grumpy Vegan.
