Pigs 'Ere Blog Part 10: Mud, mud, glorious mud

Routine check on the pigs this sunny afternoon:
Food - tick
Bedding - tick
Water - tick
Kitchen scraps - tick
General well-being - tick
Obstructions of electric fence - tick

What a happy bunch they are and, my goodness, they are putting on some weight. It's best to avoid getting a trotter on your foot now.


Water from the automatic troughs has spilled over to form an ideal pool for wallowing. First one..................

...........and then a couple more. They love it. Note to self: keep well clear in future when they shake themselves after having a dip in the mud. The splashes get everywhere.

And we are fastidious in telling our grandchildren to wash their hands before eating.

Just in case anyone is wondering, familiarity with the pigs is not diminishing my eager anticipation of tucking into a good joint of roast pork. Speaking of which, perhaps I can recommend a short story I've just read entitled 'A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig'? It was written by Charles Lamb, an essayist of the late 18th and early 19th century, and tells how a rather gormless ancient Chinese lad, Bo-bo, discovered roast pork – by accidently burning his house down, with the pigs in it, then licking his fingers to soothe the pain when he burnt them as he touched one of the bodies! Lamb, who claims to have read about this in an old manuscript, says that until that point people ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal.

 

The pig tasted so delicious that Bo-bo gorges himself on handfuls of scorched skin and flesh, much to the horror of his father, who considers that eating burnt pig is most unnatural. Bo-bo persuades his father to try this new food, and the older man is equally enthusiastic, but warns that their roast pork must remain a secret – otherwise, he fears, their neighbours may stone them for thinking they can improve on the meat provided by God. Eventually, of course, the story gets out because people notice that their cottage burns down more frequently than ever. There was ‘nothing but fires from this time forward’, says Lamb. There is a court case, and things look grim, but the foreman of the jury wants to take a look at the cooked pig, so he handles it, burns his fingers, licks them... and the rest, to coin a phrase, is history. Soon everyone is setting fire to their home at regular intervals – until they realise they can roast a pig without destroying their houses in the process.

 

It's a good read and I can recommend it, along with the other short stories Lamb wrote in the same collection. Luckily we'll be able to enjoy the fruits of our labours with resorting to arson.