Faggot (food)

Last updated

Faggot
Faggots-and-gravy.jpg
Faggots, gravy, mashed potatoes and marrowfat processed peas
CourseMain dish
Serving temperatureHot
Main ingredientsPig's heart, liver, fatty belly meat or bacon

Faggots are meatballs made from minced off-cuts and offal (especially pork, and traditionally pig's heart, liver, and fatty belly meat or bacon) mixed with herbs and sometimes bread crumbs. [1] It is a traditional dish in the United Kingdom, [2] [3] especially South and Mid Wales and the English Midlands. [1] [4] [5]

Contents

Faggots originated as a traditional cheap food consumed by country people in Western England, particularly west Wiltshire and the West Midlands. [6] Their popularity spread from there,[ citation needed ] especially to South Wales in the mid-nineteenth century, when many agricultural workers left the land to work in the rapidly expanding industry and mines of that area. Faggots are also known as "ducks" in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Lancashire, often as "savoury ducks". The first use of the term in print was in the Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser of Saturday 3 June 1843, a news report of a gluttonous man who ate twelve of them. [7]

Preparation and serving

A faggot being cooked Loz f cooking.png
A faggot being cooked

Commonly, a faggot consists of minced pork liver and heart, wrapped in bacon, with onion and breadcrumbs. Often, the faggot is cooked in a crock with gravy and served with peas and mashed potato. The mixture is shaped by hand into small balls, wrapped with caul fat (the omentum membrane from the pig's abdomen), and baked. Faggots may also be made with beef. [8]

Another variation of the faggot is pig's fry (testicles) wrapped in pig's caul: the pig's fry and boiled onions are minced (ground) together, then mixed with breadcrumbs or cold boiled potatoes, seasoned with sage, mixed herbs and pepper, all beaten together and then wrapped in small pieces of caul to form a ball. They are baked in the oven, and usually served cold. [9]

Production

The dish gained in popularity during the rationing in World War II, but declined over the following decades. [8] The "nose-to-tail eating" trend has resulted in greater demand for faggots in the 21st century; British supermarket chain Waitrose once again sold beef faggots from 2014 onwards [8] and in 2018 it was estimated that "tens of millions" of faggots were eaten every year. [10] Faggots are often home-made, and are found in traditional butchers' shops and market stalls, though many UK supermarkets stock mass-produced frozen faggots, often made of liver and onions rolled into meatballs in a sauce, different from traditional faggots, which have a coarser texture and contain far less water.

A popular dish is faggots and peas. This combination is common in the Black Country area of the West Midlands. It is still common to see small butchers' shops in the area selling faggots made to their own recipe cheaply.

Double meaning

The use of the word "faggot" has caused misunderstanding due to its American English meaning as a pejorative term for a homosexual man. In 2004, a radio commercial for the UK supermarket chain Somerfield, in which a man rejects his wife's suggested dinner saying "I've got nothing against faggots, I just don't fancy them" was found to have been innuendo which breached the Advertising and Sponsorship Code and was banned by the industry regulator Ofcom. [11] [12] In November 2013, it was reported that British Facebook users had been blocked temporarily for using the word, in its culinary sense, on the website. Facebook said that the word had been misinterpreted. [13] [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haggis</span> Scottish savoury pudding containing sheeps pluck

Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck, minced with chopped onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and cooked while traditionally encased in the animal's stomach though now an artificial casing is often used instead. According to the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique: "Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sausage</span> Meat product

A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs, may be included as fillers or extenders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scrapple</span> American pork offal mush

Scrapple, also known by the Pennsylvania Dutch name Pannhaas, is a traditional mush of fried pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and wheat flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Offal</span> Internal organs and entrails of a butchered animal

Offal, also called variety meats, pluck or organ meats, is the internal organs of a butchered animal. The word does not refer to a particular list of edible organs, and these lists of organs vary with culture and region, but usually exclude skeletal muscle. Offal may also refer to the by-products of milled grains, such as corn or wheat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meatloaf</span> Dish of baked or smoked shaped ground meat

Meatloaf is a dish of ground meat that has been combined with other ingredients and formed into the shape of a loaf, then baked or smoked. The final shape is either hand-formed on a baking tray, or pan-formed by cooking it in a loaf pan. It is usually made with ground beef, although ground lamb, pork, veal, venison, poultry, and seafood are also used, sometimes in combination. Vegetarian adaptations of meatloaf may use imitation meat or pulses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stuffing</span> Edible mixture filling a foods cavity

Stuffing, filling, or dressing is an edible mixture, often composed of herbs and a starch such as bread, used to fill a cavity in the preparation of another food item. Many foods may be stuffed, including poultry, seafood, and vegetables. As a cooking technique stuffing helps retain moisture, while the mixture itself serves to augment and absorb flavors during its preparation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White pudding</span> Meat and grain dish

White pudding, oatmeal pudding or mealy pudding is a meat dish popular in the British Isles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rissole</span> European dish of meat covered in pastry

A rissole is "a ball or flattened cake of chopped meat, fish, or vegetables mixed with herbs or spices, then coated in breadcrumbs and fried."

Romanian cuisine is a diverse blend of different dishes from several traditions with which it has come into contact, but it also maintains its own character. It has been influenced mainly by Turkish but also a series of European cuisines in particular from the Balkan Peninsula and Hungarian cuisine as well as culinary elements stemming from the cuisines of Central Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peasant foods</span> Dishes eaten by peasants

Peasant foods are dishes eaten by peasants, made from accessible and inexpensive ingredients.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Czech cuisine</span> Culinary traditions of the Czech Republic

Czech cuisine has both influenced and been influenced by the cuisines of surrounding countries and nations. Many of the cakes and pastries that are popular in Central Europe originated within the Czech lands. Contemporary Czech cuisine is more meat-based than in previous periods; the current abundance of farmable meat has enriched its presence in regional cuisine. Traditionally, meat has been reserved for once-weekly consumption, typically on weekends.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pig's organ soup</span>

Pig's organ soup or chheng-thng (清湯), is a Malaysian and Singaporean soup that is made from pork offal. The dish is a clear soup, served with other optional side dishes as well as rice.

Skilpadjies is a traditional South African food, also known by other names such as muise and vlermuise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crépinette</span> French sausage

A crépinette is a small, flattened sausage, sometimes referred to as a sausage parcel. It is similar in shape to a sausage patty, circular, and flattened.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stippgrütze</span>

Stippgrütze, also called Wurstebrei, is a German dish from Westphalia which is similar to Grützwurst or Knipp. It consists of barley groats cooked in sausage juices (Wurstbrühe), which are enriched with pieces of meat, offal, such as heart, kidney or liver and seasoned with spices and salt. More rarely, finely chopped onions are added. The cooked ingredients are minced after the juices have been poured off and a crumbly cake is left which is held together with fat and which sets on cooling. There are various recipes, but they all contain barley groats, fat and meat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meatball</span> Dish of ground meat rolled into a ball

A meatball is ground meat (mince) rolled into a ball, sometimes along with other ingredients, such as bread crumbs, minced onion, eggs, butter, and seasoning. Meatballs are cooked by frying, baking, steaming, or braising in sauce. There are many types of meatballs using different types of meats and spices. The term is sometimes extended to meatless versions based on legumes, vegetables, mushrooms, fish or other seafood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drob</span> Traditional Romanian dish

Drob, fully named Drob de Miel or Drob de Paște, is a traditional Romanian dish of lamb offals, green onions, herbs, eggs, and bread soaked in water or milk. The boiled offals are chopped and mixed with all the other ingredients and seasoned with salt and pepper. The caul of the lamb is stretched over a loaf pan and filled with the mixture.

References

  1. 1 2 "The West Midlands, Warwickshire and Northamptonshire". Great British Kitchen. Archived from the original on 22 July 2012. Retrieved 19 January 2010.
  2. "Family of faggot fans fly the flag". BBC News Online . 27 January 2003. Archived from the original on 7 August 2022. Retrieved 30 April 2011.
  3. "Neath is Wales's Faggots 'n' Peas capital". Wales Online. 11 August 2009. Archived from the original on 2 February 2009. Retrieved 19 January 2010.
  4. "The Dangers of Bad Teeth". The Times . 6 January 1914. p. 2. Retrieved 18 October 2009. A 'faggot' was described as being composed of pieces of meat, with fat and gristle in it. A verdict of 'Death from natural causes' was returned.[ dead link ] (payment required)
  5. "Doctor warns the faggot eaters". The Times. 23 May 1968. p. 4. Retrieved 18 October 2009.[ dead link ] (payment required)
  6. Lemm, Elaine. "What are Faggots". Britishfood.about.com. Archived from the original on 18 May 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  7. "Savoury Ducks". The Foods of England. 22 May 2015. Archived from the original on 22 September 2015. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
  8. 1 2 3 "Waitrose brings back faggots". London Evening Standard . 18 February 2014. p. 24.
  9. Lizzie Boyd, ed. (May 1979). British Cookery: A Complete Guide to Culinary Practice in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Viking Press. ISBN   0-87951-087-0.
  10. "Faggots and groaty dick: Why some foods travel and others don't". BBC News. 2 September 2018. Archived from the original on 2 September 2018. Retrieved 2 September 2018.
  11. "Advertising complaints bulletin, Issue number A13" (PDF). Ofcom. 5 July 2004. p. 10. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 September 2007.
  12. "Ofcom bans 'derogatory' faggot advert". The Daily Telegraph . 5 July 2004. Archived from the original on 8 November 2022. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  13. Prynne, Miranda (1 November 2013). "Man banned from Facebook for liking faggots". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 6 September 2022. Retrieved 11 December 2013.
  14. "Faggots and peas fall foul of Facebook censors". Express & Star . 1 November 2013. Archived from the original on 10 May 2020. Retrieved 11 December 2013.