Pork

We did not take pork with the Poles, big in the pork business, yesterday at reference 1, but we tried to make up a couple of days later, with a nicely presented, if rather fatty looking piece of rolled shoulder. Another up-side was that the skin did not appear to have been tied on afterwards, it was the real thing. Tie-on, apart from sounding and looking a bit naff, has not given us very good results in the past, partly because the fatty tissue under the skin has been cut away. The active ingredient, as it were, of good crackling. Not that I eat much of the stuff these days, being a bit anxious about what it left of my lower back teeth.

After poking around in the archives, I settled on reference 5 as the appropriate precedent. Three times 33 plus 11 plus 20 is just over two hours at 160°C. 11:20 start for 13:30.

I also opted, for a change, for tomato sauce rather than gravy, and this was started shortly after the pork went into the oven. Butter, black pepper, garlic, onions, tomatoes and celery. Some of these vegetables were a little over their hill, but they did well enough for sauce.

Cooked, the pork looked well enough on its big plate.

On my plate, a little later. Entirely satisfactory, if perhaps a touch underdone to my taste. A bit pink in the middle.

A rather different meal from that we had taken at reference 5. But then, that was in the vicinity of Christmas. I had forgotten about the white pudding trimmings which, being rather dry, might, on the present occasion, have provided a useful complement to the fattiness of the pork.

Towards the end of the first shift. Taken with a little 'London Pride' and with stewed apple (with cloves) to follow.

In the event, it did go round for a second shift the following day, and I did get in the odd pork sandwich on white. our happening to have some white bread in the house for once. Bifana, Epsom style. Finding these last is left as an exercise for the reader.

But the pork was rather fatty; not the best rolled shoulder of pork that we have had. It might have been improved had I cooked it for a little longer.

PS: on Polish pork, Google offers a much fuller story than Bing, and most of it is snapped above. While I had thought that Poland was a big player in the pork business, it seems that, despite significant exports to the EU and beyond, they are net importers. They have too many small producers who have a hard time competing with the more industrialised operations of the likes of the Danes and they have had trouble with Asian Swine flu which has made export to the Far East difficult. Not helped by the fever circulating in the large wild boar population - with wild boars in Polish cities sounding very like our urban foxes in and around London.

The Google and Bing stories are confirmed, at least in general terms, by other sources, for example references 2, 3 and 4.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/05/polish-grub.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_swine_fever_virus.

Reference 3: https://www.agroberichtenbuitenland.nl/actueel/nieuws/2024/10/16/pork-market-in-poland.

Reference 4: https://rr-europe.woah.org/app/uploads/2019/11/c5_sge-asf1_poland.pdf.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/01/festal-pork.html.