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Pig's Feet, Soused
Take four young and tender pig's feet. Scald and scrape them, and put them into a stewpan, with as much lukewarm water as will cover them. Bring the liquor to a boil, and skim carefully, then simmer the feet gently until all the bones can be taken out. Lift them out, put them into a deep pan, and sprinkle salt over them. As the liquid cools, remove the fat from the top of it; and when it is quite clear, boil a quart of it with the same quantity of vinegar, a dessert-spoonful of whole pepper, and a blade of mace. Let it boil ten minutes, and pour it boiling hot over the feet. Cover the jar closely. If liked, the head can be soused with the feet. The meat may be eaten cold from the vinegar, or fried and browned, and served hot. Time to boil the feet, three hours. Sufficient for a breakfast or luncheon dish.
A straightforward vinegar pickle of cooked trotters, the kind of cold-larder dish that made sense before refrigeration. Two things decide the result: cooking the feet until the bones slip out, and pouring the pickle over boiling hot.
- Buy them cleanedButchers and Asian or Latin markets sell trotters already scalded and scraped, split or whole. Scalding and scraping at home is only necessary if you are working from an uncleaned foot; otherwise rinse well and check between the toes for bristle.
- Three hours is rightUnlike many old timings, this one holds. Trotters are almost entirely skin, collagen and small bones, and they need long, bare-simmer cooking before the bones pull free. Keep the liquid at a shiver, not a rolling boil, or the skin shreds.
- The liquor is the pointDo not discard the cooking water. Chilling it lets you lift the fat off in a cake, and the clear jelly beneath is gelatinous. Boiled up with an equal quantity of vinegar it may set only lightly; the recipe itself speaks of the meat being eaten cold from the vinegar.
- QuantitiesA quart here is an imperial quart, 40 fl oz (about 1.14 litres). A dessert-spoonful is between a teaspoon and a tablespoon — roughly 2 teaspoons of whole peppercorns. A blade of mace is one piece of the lacy aril from nutmeg; a quarter teaspoon of ground mace substitutes acceptably.
- Vinegar strengthMalt and cider vinegars of the period were probably in the same range as ordinary bottled vinegar today, around 5 per cent acetic acid, though strengths varied and were not standardised. Use plain cider or malt vinegar, not a mellow wine or balsamic vinegar, which will not carry the pickle.
- Pour it boilingThe pickle should go over the feet while genuinely boiling, and the jar covered at once, as the recipe directs. The hot pour heats the surface and drives out air; a lukewarm pour gives you a cloudy, quick-spoiling jar. It does not sterilise the jar.
- StorageThis is a refrigerator pickle, not a preserve. It is not processed, sealed or acid-tested to any modern standard, so keep it cold, under the liquid, and eat it within a week.
- ServingThe recipe calls four feet sufficient for a breakfast or luncheon dish; it gives no number of eaters. Cold, slice the meat thin and eat with mustard; hot, blot the pieces dry, dust with flour and fry in dripping until the skin blisters and browns.
Souse comes by way of an Old French word for pickling brine from a Germanic root meaning salt or brine, and by the medieval period "to souse" meant to preserve in vinegar and salt, usually the parts of a pig that would not keep otherwise: feet, ears, snout and head. It was a way of getting extra days out of the cheapest cuts and a cold dish onto the breakfast table without cooking in the morning. Related dishes are widespread: souse meat in the American South, head cheese and brawn in Britain and Germany, and the pickled pig's foot souse still eaten across the Caribbean all use the same sequence of long simmering, then acid. The instruction to add the head is a reminder that a Victorian household buying pork bought it in large pieces and expected to use all of it.