Here in London I’ve been eating the inner and outer parts of pigs (I’m not sure that they all constitute organs).
Here at a restaurant named Noble Rot on Lamb’s Conduit Street, my companion and I ate the set lunch – the starter for which was pig cheek salad. Sounds quite humble – but it was an absolute stunner. Fatty, tart, - and yes, there was greenery too:
And on the menu at Josephine’s Filipino restaurant on Charlotte Street there was something described as “deep fried pork flowers served with spicy vingar.”
Now you understand the “bloom” reference. I asked the waiter what that was and he said “pork skin” – so of course I ordered it. It looked like this:
The internet suggests that there’s only one restaurant in the whole world that refers to this dish as pork flowers - and that's Josephine’s. It’s more usually known as Sitsaron Bulaklak, sometimes referred to as ruffled fat or chitterlings, and more anatomically as pig mesentery. Now, I perfectly understand the need for euphemism in food, but these are definitely not pork skin. They were nevertheless really, really good. Chewy, of course but deep fried so also crunchy.
And at the Punch Tavern in Fleet Street, on a Monday night when the whole area seemed strangely deserted and bleak, there was this serving of pork crackling.
I suppose crackling’s a euphemism too.
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