Telling Tales

We've got three new arrivals on the farm! Guy's just been to Victoria on the boat and brought back two sows and a boar of different bloodlines. So we need to think of names....we like to keep the first letter the same as the name of the line, so for example we've got Bramble, Betty and Big Bertha who are from the Beatrice line. Our two new girls comes from the Lass and May lines, and our little boy is a Satellite. Any suggestions for L, M, and S names?

Our Lass girl has a strange tail. There's no denying it. But we celebrate difference on this farm, so all's well. She might just have to practice curling it up in the Mount Gnomon Farm way (see below).

Some pig farmers don't have the pleasure of watching pig's tails unfurl and wind-up. On intensive farms where the pigs are kept inside they cut off their tails when they're a week old so they don't chew them off each other when they get bored.

We're yet to try eating tail, but we've just bought a book from the UK, Nose to Tail Eating by acclaimed St. John Restaurant chef Fergus Henderson that has lots of offal recipes in it (Offal, not awful...). We're going to try this recipe and we'll let you know how it goes...

You need: 8 long pig's tails, 2 onions, 2 carrots and 2 celery sticks roughly chopped, bundle of fresh herbs, 3 bay leaves, 10 black peppercorns, 1 head of garlic, zest of 1 lemon, 1/2 bottle of red wine, 1.1 litres chicken stock, 2 tbsp English mustard, 4 eggs whisked together, 450g seasoned flour, 225g fine white breadcrumbs, a large knob of butter.

Fergus says to put the tails in a dish with the vegetables, herbs, peppercorns, garlic, lemon zest, wine and stock, and then cover and cook for three hours in a medium oven. Allow them to cool in the stock, then take them out before it turns to jelly.

When they're cold and firm, mix together the mustard and eggs, then dip them in flour, roll through the mustard and egg mixture and coat them in breadcrumbs. Get a large roasting tray hot, melt the butter, then add the tails and cook in a hot over for 10 minutes, turn them over and cook for another 10. Sounds yummy - we'll have to start collecting our tails.