A couple of week's ago I had a fantastic night out at The Ginger Pig.
This isn't some boozer but indeed a butcher and farm shop belonging to my all time favourite butcher at Borough Market, The Ginger Pig, just off Marylebone High St.
About 12 of us hacked a pig to pieces under the guidance of Barry and Borat. I would at this early juncture like to question their sanity, letting 12 toffs use a cleaver, a bone saw and a knife that goes through pig as though it were soft, slighlty melted butter cannot be sensible - every time they passed one of the boys a cleaver I feared for loss of limbs and perhaps life.
After an interesting chat about how people bend the rules to call food organic (it can still lead to animals being treated badly) and how free range is often far superior we watched Barry cleave a pig's head in half and were instructed to finger its brain, which we did like an anxious, slighlty giddy 13yr old.
We then got cutting, sawing and cleaving - it was slighlty nervous as you were called upon to hack through a section in front of all the boys. Everyone had each others back, move your fucking finger man went out the warnings and a hearty round of applause was given on completion.
After this group autopsy you are given a cut of pork to bone and smear with garlic, fennel seeds, pepper and salt - and boy oh boy are you encouraged to layer on the salt. Barry also spends a long time telling you how to get the perfect crackling - don't let it get wet. Get it out of all packaging, even paper and let it go uncovered for a couple of days in the fridge. If it's still a bit wet, then just saturate it in salt, obviously you should score it too (not too deeply otherwise the fat will bubble up, making it wet). You then take this wedge home and have the home roast pork of your life and I can assure you the crackling will be sensational. The worse part about preparing the pork is that you have to tie it up, now it's well known I am a fucking malco, somehow I did eventually tie my beast but it was very much a hybrid of the 'simple' method we were shown.
After getting hugely frustrated by attempting to tie up the pork, relief arrives in the form of here's one we did earlier. You're given a plate with 2 huuuuge slabs of roasted pork, a piece of crackling the size of your palm, a slab of gratin as big as your hand, carrots dripping in melted sugar and butter and shit loads of roasties - all with lots of white wine. Simply sensational.
It costs £125 and I have to say whilst that is an intimidating figure it is well worth it, you're there from about 6.30 till 10, Barry and Borat are top lads, the food you have is far, far superior to that you will have at home or in any pub and of course you get to take home a huge beast which can feed 6. Oh you also get bread and butter pudding but we could barely wedge that in.
I strongly urge you to sign up but they flogged 70k's worth of vouchers at Christmas so there is likely to be a bit of a wait, they also do beef and lamb courses, I'm deffo gonna sharpen my knives for them.
