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Pig, Sucking, Baked
Prepare and stuff the pig exactly as for roasting. Brush it well in every part with beaten white of egg; it will then require no further basting, and the crackling will be perfectly crisp. Serve and dish it in the same way as roast pig, and with the same accompaniments. A sucking-pig is much more easily baked than roasted, and is, in the opinion of the majority of persons, quite as nice. Time to bake a three weeks old pig, an hour and a half to two hours. Probable cost, 6s. to 9s. Sufficient for eight or nine persons.
The whole point of this entry is the distinction between roasting and baking, which has collapsed since it was written. Everything a modern cook does is baking in Cassell's sense.
- Roast vs. bakeIn this book roasting means turning the joint on a spit before an open fire, with constant basting; baking means shutting it in the oven. What we call roasting today is what Cassell's calls baking, which is why this version is described as easier.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature; Cassell's, like most books of its date, states times rather than heats. Any figures here are a modern reconstruction and not in the original: a hot oven at the start to set the skin, dropping to a moderate one for the remainder, is the usual modern approach.
- The egg-white glazeThis is the hinge. The recipe claims the brushed white of egg makes further basting unnecessary and yields perfectly crisp crackling; a dried protein film over the skin is the plausible explanation, though the book offers none. In practice such a glaze goes on best over dry skin.
- Size and timingA three-week-old pig would have been a small carcass, perhaps in the region of 10-12 lb dressed, which is consistent with the hour and a half to two hours given. Suckling pigs sold now are often larger, commonly somewhere between 15 and 25 lb, and will want considerably longer. Modern practice is to cook to about 160F in the thickest part of the shoulder, or nearer 180F if you want the shoulder and leg meat to pull apart.
- SourcingA whole suckling pig is generally a special order from a butcher, often needing several days' notice, and is normally supplied scalded and cleaned. Measure your oven before ordering: a large pig laid flat needs a big roasting pan and may have to go in diagonally.
- Protecting the extremitiesEars, snout and tail char long before the body is done. Wrap them in foil for the first two-thirds of the cooking and remove for the last half hour.
- Stuffing"As for roasting" points the reader to the book's roast sucking-pig entry, which would have carried a bread-and-herb forcemeat of the usual sage-and-onion type. Pack it loosely and sew or skewer the cavity shut; if stuffed, check that the stuffing itself reaches 165F.
- Accompaniments and costThe recipe names no accompaniments, only "the same" as for roast pig; apple sauce and a plain gravy from the pan were the conventional pairing, with the lemon or apple in the mouth a familiar piece of table dressing. The 6s. to 9s. is Victorian money and suggests a substantial outlay; the stated yield of eight or nine holds if the pig is carved rather than pulled.
- RestingGive it 20-30 minutes under a loose tent before carving. Do not cover tightly or the crackling softens.
Suckling pig was festival food in Britain for centuries, associated with Christmas, harvest suppers and civic feasts, and it survived into Victorian cookery books as a set piece rather than an everyday dish. That Cassell's carries both a roasted and a baked version fits the broader nineteenth-century shift from the open hearth with its spit and jack to the closed kitchen range -- a change spread across much of the century rather than confined to the decades of this book -- and whole-animal cookery had to be rewritten for an enclosed box. The egg-white glaze plausibly belongs to that rewriting: with no fire radiating onto the skin and no cook basting every few minutes, something else was needed to produce crackling, and a protein glaze that sets and dries answers. The aside that most people find the baked version "quite as nice" reads like reassurance to households that had lost the spit.