Gloucester Old Spots
by Russell Grant
It was one lunchtime at my usual restaurant at Staines , Middlesex in the early 1990s my eyes first alighted upon Gloucester Old Spot; the Specials board announced - Gloucester Old Spot Pork Chop. I ordered it and the succulent meat with a border of crispy fat – don't squirm the fat gives the flavour – meant I was reduced to spending the rest of my culinary life looking for Old Spot whenever pork was a part of my menu.
I got it regularly many miles from Gloucester at a butcher in Lytham, Lancashire . With family living in Blackpool I was able to bring home ample Old Spot supplies. Funny how joints of meat once thought as cheap are so chi-chi with top chefs now. How often nowadays is pork belly given star a la carte billing as though these culinary celebrities were the first to discover its beauties?
Around the country and in Gloucester itself, there are many butchers selling Old Spot meat including sausages and pies that is how popular it has become since this poor old pig nearly died out. Needless to say when I returned from the city a couple of months before completing this book I was clutching two loins and three bellies from Morgan's of Westgate Street .
This little piglet has come on leaps and bounds in the great scheme of piggy things. 1913 seems to be the agreed date pedigree records were first kept and yet in this short span it has become the oldest pedigree spotted pig in the world. The origin of the breed is unknown but is most probably from a mix of the Gloucester native stock with various breeds. They started their porcine rise to being a porky favourite first in the Vale of Berkeley, not far from the city.
In 1855, William Youatt tells in his book The Pig “There is a native stock in Gloucester of an unattractive dirty white colour”, but no mention of Spots! HD Richardson in 'The Pig - Its Origins and Varieties' writes “it comes from crossing the original Gloucester pig - a large, off-white variety with wattles hanging from its neck, with the unimproved Berkshire, a sandy-coloured prick-eared pig with spots”. Writer William Marshall confirms this in 'The Rural Economy of Gloucestershire' way back in 1780.
Why has Old Spot become such a delicacy in such a short time? One big clue is that they are the traditional breed that roamed the apple and pear orchards of Gloucestershire. They were traditionally known as the Orchard or Cottage Pig as they lived in gardens and smallholdings and were reared largely as domestic animals. So when they went scrumping for apples – probably Gloucestershire' own winter russet Ashmead's Kernal - in the orchards they built up a natural reservoir of apple sauce inside and what goes best with pork apart from apple sauce? Cider!
True Gloucester Old Spots are recognised by the large jet black spots on their backs and soft floppy ears. Local folklore claims the spots are bruises caused by the avalanche of apples falling on them as they snuffle around sniffing out windfalls. Like their Italian cousins who hunt for truffles the Old Spots love a good forage and graze, picking up all sorts of goodies from the ground. They also lap up the whey left over after the butter and cheese had been made.
Before war was declared against Germany in 1914 Kaiser Wilhelm II, Queen Victoria 's grandson, ordered two pigs to be sent to him, but they never made the trip. After the First World War, the rise of modern agricultural methods tried to breed out the pigs mainly because they did not adapt to the indoor pens introduced post war and by the 1950s this large, lazy, amiable pig was on the point of extinction before it even had time to reach its centenary.
We now have to cross the county line into Worcestershire and farmer, George Styles. Alarmed by the decline of his favourite porker that he set out single-handedly to save the breed. St George, saviour of the Old Spot. Thanks to George, grandfather of this rare breed, the Old Spots are now thriving all over Britain . However, be on the look-out for lurking interlopers sporting blue and grey spots, they are due to previous inter-breeding, only jet black spots will do for a true Old Spot! Oh and do you know some people even tried to get rid of the spots altogether? They said it was because it was harder for butchers to clean up and sell as customers did not want a polka-dot meat. Thankfully, this is a trend that has been reversed. An Old Spot without spots is like zebra without stripes!
The sows make excellent moms, produce plenty of milk and thrive outdoors. Their independence and ability to produce healthy litters twice a year ensures they are fast becoming Britain 's favourite organic pig. Gloucester 's Folk Museum has an annual Old Spot-fest where you can visit the pigs in their pens and pat the stuffed Gloucester cow too! There is a great picture of an Old Spot in the museum, depicted as a huge fluffy pink ball of a candyfloss pig with black spots held up by four of the tiniest tippy-toe trotters.
The King of England and The Queen of England were two very royal pigs exported to America and used to develop the Spotted Poland China and the Minnesota No.3 breed. In the mid-1990s, twenty examples of the breed were exported to the USA to help re-establish the Old Spot in its purest form.
Even the Falkland Islands known more for sheep than swine have taken delivery of their own Old Spots. And to show how much a prime porker can bring back in 1994, a Gloucester Old Spot became the most expensive pig in the UK . The exotically named Foston Sambo, 21, sold at auction for £4000 guineas, that's about £4,400.
Now that's one helluva hog!
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