Everything but the pig

High above the village of Dinas, on a grassy track that links the hillside cottages and smallholdings (now either holiday homes or ruins) I came upon this old pig sty, recently renovated by a stone mason and local volunteers with some official funding. The dilapidated remains of a dwelling are sinking into oblivion close by but this porker's palace has been given a new lease of life.

It is rather a splendid example of a sty, with steps leading to an elevated chamber. I haven't seen one quite its like before but the cottage pig was once an esteemed member of the working class family. Almost every household had one, however poor, because a piglet could be reared and fattened on the most basic fare: potatoes, nettles, buttermilk, slops and scraps. Pigs could also be let out to forage for themselves and some of the things they ingested don't bear mentioning. The health and welfare of the pig would be a constant focus of attention from family, friends and neighbours: passers-by would stop to lean over the sty and compare notes.

Come the autumn, piggy's time ran out. The killing was an important event, followed by the salting, rendering and preserving of the porcine parts ( 'everything but the squeal') as blood pudding, bacon, sausages, brawn, haslet and so on. Debts and favours could be returned to neighbours and relatives in the form of fresh offal - on plates that had to be given back dirty, not washed which would bring bad luck. It's fair to say that the survival of a family through the winter depended on the success of their pig.

In my own memory, going back to the 1950s, every farmhouse had one or two flitches of home-cured bacon hanging from the ceiling and a neighbourly visit, bearing some garden produce or the like, would be concluded, if you were lucky, by the farmer's wife reaching up with a sharp knife and cutting a few slices to be taken home wrapped in greaseproof paper and newspaper. These salt-encrusted rashers had only had a thin ribbon of meat in them but the trick was to press the bacon down on to the frying pan to expel the fat and leave just a strip of crunchiness. The fat could then be used to fry your egg and slice of bread. Autre temps, autre moeurs!