Preserved in Aspic

In our modern day society dishes such as faggots and haggis would struggle to become popular if newly introduced. We have become very picky as to what we consider fit to eat.

Back in the ‘good old days’ when food was expensive people were less fussy. In Victorian times Aspic jelly was popular, both as a preservative, forming a barrier around certain foods and as a nourishing dish for invalids.

The jelly is made by boiling up meat and bones and clarifying the resulting stock which contains natural gelatin. Pig’s trotters were a popular source and could also be found on the menus of various culinary establishments, especially chop houses.

In the best traditions of ‘waste not, want not’ the remains of the trotters were retained after the clients had picked what they could from them and the bones and gristle boiled up to make the jelly. The boiling sterilized the trotters rendering the Aspic safe to eat.

As Fergus Henderson so eloquently puts it in his marvellous book -Nose To Tail Eating - If we are going to eat meat then it’s only polite to eat the whole animal.