Suckling pig

A sucking-pig (BrE)^[1] or suckling pig (AmE)^[2] is a piglet fed on its mother's milk (i.e., a piglet which is still being "suckled"). In culinary contexts, a sucking-pig is slaughtered before the end of its second month. Celebrated since Greek and Roman times, it is traditionally cooked whole, usually roasted, in various cuisines, and is often prepared for special occasions and gatherings.

A variation is popular in Spain and Portugal and their former empires under the name lechón (Spanish) or leitão (Portuguese), but the dish is common to many countries in Europe, the Americas and east Asia. Its popularity in Britain and the US has declined since the 19th century.

According to Larousse Gastronomique, a piglet – in French a porcelet – is defined as a sucking-pig if it is below the age of two months.^[3] The Oxford Dictionary of Food and Nutrition defines the age as four to five weeks.^[4] It may weigh as little as three or four kilos (6.6 – 8.8 lbs).^[5] Mrs Beeton recommended putting the slaughtered piglet into cold water briefly and then immersing it in boiling water, before pulling off the hair and removing the entrails.^[6] In his 1907 Guide to Modern Cookery, Auguste Escoffier wrote, "Stuffed or not stuffed, sucking pigs are always roasted whole, and the essential point of the procedure is that they should be just done when their skin is crisp and golden".^[7]

Many recipes for sucking-pig survive from ancient times. Andrew Dalby in his Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece (1996) draws attention to the precise and differentiated Greek vocabulary for categorising pigs of varying ages and sizes, and observes that "sucking-pigs, galathenoi, were a particular delicacy".^[8] Ancient Chinese and Roman cuisine valued the dish: Alan Davidson comments, "the Romans certainly liked sucking pig".^[9] In her 1985 Food and Cooking in Roman Britain, Jane Renfrew writes, "Sucking pig was roasted in the oven and then served with a thickened sauce flavoured with pepper, lovage, caraway, celery seed, asafoetida root, rue, liquamen, wine must and olive oil".^[10] Apicius's fifth-century cookery book De re coquinaria (About Cooking) contains several recipes for sucking-pig, including porcellum assum tractomelinum (stuffed with pastry and honey) and porcellum farsilem duobus generis (stuffed in two ways – one stuffing being a mixture of pepper, lovage, oregano, celery seed, cumin, fennel seed and rosemary, and the other containing laser root, cooked brains, raw eggs and boiled spelt).^[11] The sucking-pig appears in early texts such as the sixth-century Salic law.^{[n 1]}

The first recorded use of the term in English dates from 1553: "Yonge suckynge pygges, porci delicicode: lat promoted to code: la ".^[13] The Oxford Companion to Food (OCF) comments, "Sucking pigs are sometimes referred to as suckling pigs; this is incorrect, since it is the mothers who suckle and the young who suck".^{[13][n 2]} In the sixteenth century a common alternative term was "roasting pigs".^[1] Sucking-pigs were widely used in medieval cookery, and when it became more usual for pigs to be farmed than hunted in forests a larger proportion would be killed and sold as sucking-pigs.^[13] In the 18th century Hannah Glasse and in the 19th century Mrs Beeton published recipes for them, "always the most favoured way of cooking them";^[13] Mrs Beeton stipulates, "A sucking-pig, to be eaten in perfection, should not be more than three weeks old, and should be dressed the same day that it is killed".^[6] The OCF adds, "in recent times sucking-pig has become less and less usual in England and the USA".^[13]

There are many variations in Western and Asian cuisines:

In his 366 Menus and 1200 Recipes in French and English (1884) the French gourmet Baron Brisse includes "cochon de lait rôti – roast sucking-pig".^[15] He suggests stuffing the piglet with fresh butter seasoned with chopped herbs, salt and pepper or with chopped liver, bacon, mushrooms, capers, mixed herbs, salt and pepper.^[15] Cochon de lait Saint-Fortunat is stuffed with a mixture of cooked barley, the piglet's liver, herbs, chipolata sausages and braised chestnuts and roasted.^[16] Other French versions of sucking-pig are:

• cochon de lait à l'américain (stuffed with a mixture of liver and sausage meat);^[17]
• —à l'alsacienne (Alsatian style) – stuffed with pork sausage meat mixed with braised sauerkraut and the diced sautéed pork liver, roasted
• —à la bavaroise (Bavarian style) – brushed with oil and roasted, deglazed with thick veal gravy and served with potato dumplings and coleslaw made with diced bacon
• —à l'anglaise (English style) – filled with sage and onion stuffing, roasted; apple sauce mixed with blanched currants served separately
• —à l'allemande (German style) – stuffed with apple slices and currants, roasted; à l'italienne (Italian style} boned, stuffed with risotto mixed with grated Parmesan and diced salami, roasted
• —à la farce de foie de porc (with liver stuffing) – stuffed with a mixture of butter, eggs, soaked bread and the piglet's boiled chopped liver. seasoned with nutmeg and roasted
• —à la piemontaise (Piedmont style) – stuffed with risotto mixed with grated white truffles, roasted; served with a light tomato sauce
• —à la polonaise (Polish style) – stuffed with braised shredded cabbage mixed with diced ham and roasted
• —aux pruneaux (with prunes) – stuffed with stoned half-cooked prunes mixed with marjoram and roasted
• —à la russe (Russian style) – roasted unseasoned and basted with sour cream; carved and served on buckwheat sauce mixed with the cooked diced liver and diced hard-boiled eggs.^[18]

French cuisine also includes a recipe for sucking-pig's trotters (pieds de cochon de lait à la tchèque – Czech style) in which the trotters are cooked in beer with caraway seeds.^[19] Elizabeth David records as "one of the best dishes of its type I have yet tasted" a galantine from Lorraine, consisting of a whole sucking-pig chopped up with white wine, vegetables, spices and herbs.^[20] She mentions also "the famous porcelet en gelée, an elegant brawn of sucking pig which makes a fine hors d'œuvre ... in which pieces of pork lie embedded in a crystal clear jelly".^[21]

In Italy there are several terms for a sucking-pig: maialino, porcetto, porcellino di latte, or lattonzolo.^[5] Porchetta is a sucking-pig stuffed, flavoured with garlic and rosemary, spit-roasted whole and served in slices. The Sardinian porceddu is flavoured with myrtle and spit-roasted whole.^[22] Mantecato al maialino is a creamy Carnaroli risotto with sucking-pig and Parmesan.^[23]

Roast sucking-pig is known in German, Austrian and German-Swiss cuisines as gebratenes Spanferkel.^[24] It is often served at festive occasions such as the Oktoberfest.^[25] Rheinisches Spanferkel (Rhine sucking-pig) is roast, basted with beer, and served with a stuffing of butter, veal, bacon, liver, bread, onions, eggs, and herbs, flavoured with nutmeg and Madeira.^[26]

Hungarian cuisine includes not only roast sucking-pig (malac sülve) but sucking-pig soup (malacaprólék-leves) and sucking-pig jelly (malackocsonya).^[27] Until the mid-20th century prosię adziewane (roast stuffed sucking-pig) was a traditional Polish Easter dish, which might be stuffed with liver (farsz podróbkowy), buckwheat (farsz z kaszy gryczanej) or raisin and almond (farsz z rodzynków i migdalów).^[28] Roast sucking-pig is known as Пeчeно прасe (pecheno prase) in Bulgaria, and purcel mic la gratăr in Romania.^[29] The Greek version is γουρουνόπουλο γάλακτος (ghurounopulou ghalaktos).^[30]

In Sweden sucking-pig is called spädgris; it is usually cooked in the oven, or sometimes roasted directly over a fire. It is often stuffed with various fruits such as apples and plums, together with butter and breadcrumbs.^[31] Russian recipes for sucking-pig include braising Estonian-style in a mixture of sherry and broth, roasting Russian-style, stuffed with giblets and buckwheat, and stuffed with apple and served with a buckwheat and horseradish sauce.^[32]

Lechón (Spanish, Spanish pronunciation: [leˈtʃon]; from leche "milk" + -ón), cochinillo asado (Spanish, literally "sucking pig"),^{[n 3]} or leitão (Portuguese; from leite "milk" + -ão) is a pork dish in several regions of the world, most specifically in Spain (in particular Segovia), Portugal (in particular Bairrada) and regions worldwide previously colonized by the Portuguese Empire or Spanish Empire. Lechón/Leitão is a word referring to a roasted baby pig (piglet) which was still fed by sucking its mother's milk. Lechón/Leitão is a popular item in the cuisine in Los Angeles (in the United States), Spain, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Honduras, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and other Spanish-speaking nations in Latin America, as well as in Portugal, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique and other Portuguese-speaking nations.^[34] The dish features a whole roasted suckling pig cooked over charcoal. It has been described as a national dish of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Spain, Portugal, as well as the Philippines. However, the pig-roasting traditions of the Philippines (similar to other Austronesian regions) have native pre-colonial origins. The meaning of "lechon" in Filipino has diverted from the original Spanish term to become a general term for "roasted pig", and is used in reference to adult roasted pigs rather than to suckling pigs, with Cebu being asserted by the American chef Anthony Bourdain as having the best pigs.^[35][36]

In most of these regions, lechón/leitão is prepared throughout the year for special occasions, during festivals. It is the centerpiece of the tradition Cuban Christmas feast La Noche Buena.^[37]

Lechona, also known as lechón asado, is a popular Colombian dish.^[38] It is similar in style to many preparations made in other South American countries, consisting of a roasted pig stuffed with yellow peas, green onion, and spices, cooked in an outdoor brick oven for several hours. Yellow rice is sometimes added, especially in Bogotá. It is mostly traditional to the Tolima Department in central Colombia and is usually accompanied by arepas, a corn-based dough.

The dish has been described as a national dish of Puerto Rico. The name of the dish in Puerto Rico is lechón asado.^{[39][40][n 4]}

Suckling pig dishes in parts of Southeast Asia, like Singapore and Vietnam, are influenced by ethnic Chinese cuisine. Roast suckling pig is eaten in Chinese or Vietnamese restaurants for important parties.^[43] It is also a popular dish at wedding dinners or a party for a baby's completion of its first month of life.^[44][45]

The suckling pig is used in Cajun cuisine in the southern US, where the Cochon de Lait Festival^[46] is held annually in the small town of Mansura, Louisiana. During this festival suckling pigs are served.

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• The Historical Lechón
• Philippines Swine Meat Domestic Consumption by Year
• Livestock: Inventory