I had some people over for dinner last Saturday night and despite the filthy weather, we threw a slab of pork onto the BBQ, then retired to the lounge room to watch The Swans smash The Weagles.
The French doors from the balcony were open and within minutes the aroma of singed pig came wafting across our olfactory paths, reaffirming my belief that the BBQ is truly symbolic of man’s most basic right to bare tongs and burn mammals. A vat of ’00 Peter Lehmann Eight Songs Shiraz later and I was waxing lyrical about what I suspect must have been one of the Top 3 moments in human history; the day the first caveman put a piece of raw pig onto an open flame.
One of the popular theories suggests that about 125,000 years ago, Homo Erectus was simply using fire as a means of warming himself/warding off predators. At the time, whatever meat made up part of his diet was consumed raw; this was not only rather disgusting but also very fucking difficult to chew/digest. Anyway, it’s thought that perhaps Gronk and his fellow prototype Carpaccio-gobblers may have thrown a few hunks of their raw meat into the fire as part of a primitive offering to what they considered some sort of benevolent, protective god.
Whatever the reason, can you imagine the sheer, utter delight as the raw pork (I’m making the assumption here…) spluttered and spattered and sizzled in the glowing embers ?? Imagine smelling pork cooking for the first time…it would have been heavenly. Imagine retrieving the crusty brown morsels from the flames, all covered in juicy, moist crackling. Imagine putting the first piece of hot roast pork in your gob, taking a bite and wondering why you hadn’t thought of doing this 300,000 years earlier when you first discovered fire.
Doh…
22 comments:
When we lived in the Magic Kingdom, 2 main essentials in life were forbidden: booze & pig meat! We made our own wine, which solved one problem, but getting a packet of bacon was simply impossible. Never ever, ever, ever want to go back to being denied a slab of pig meat (for Hubs) or streaky bacon for me.....it's pure torture honestly!
Sometimes though, I wonder whether in the absence of alcohol, I'd ever have need of bacon again...
All too true fingers, there is something about the smell of a piece of pig or a good sausage copping a good searing.
Bacon is inextricably linked to alcohol, in particular wine. Not only is it a major part of the obligatory morning after greasy feed following a night on the turps, but the link goes back in history.
Did you know that ancient wine growers kept pigs for hunting truffles but also as they somehow could identify the optimum time for picking the grapes. When the pigs actually started trying to eat the grapes, they knew they were ripe.
This served several purposes - not only did it help them with the grape picking, but also the increased consumption of fermenting grapes would give the pork a particular flavour.
Pigs and wine are like Pigs and Blankets - they go together.
Mmm, bacon.
I can't wait to go have a peameal bacon sandwich at the St Lawrence market in about a week and a half. Salty, fatty goodness.
Your comments on bacon are not assisting my hangover. If only there were a decent cafe around here that served bacon... or a doner kebab shop. Mmmmm.
Hmmm hot meat... yummy juicey goodness.
I am now hungry and salivating. Must find takeaway shop
I didn't know that, Todd.
Appreciate the heads up...that is good buzz, mate.
I always use pigs as a guide when I'm out drinking. As soon as one of them starts to look good, I know it's time to go home...
as a card carrying cynic, one of the joys of having kids, fingers, is to feed them stuff they havn't had before. there's the usual suspects like chocolate and ice cream, and tabasco when they get lippy, but with the Heir approaching 7, we wants to be like his dad. the gag reflex as a rugrat gets onto an anchovie stuffed olive for the first time is priceless...
Ok, so maybe I made that shit up. It did sound good, didn't it.
And bacon and wine ARE good together, this much is true...
I'm getting a little squirt of Dopamine just thinking about BBQ.
Yummy.
get the cave, get the pig, start fire, get woman.....
Only trouble is that once you have all these every man and his dog will try and take them from you
Only one thing to do in that case.
Give them the cave-chick as a sacrifice in order to save the cave, the pig and the fire...
And if you moved in I'd have two pigs for cavemates...
Mate, off topic but what the fuck...you following the "exposé" of "Paul Hogan's tax problems" (read 'fraud')in the SMH? What a joke! What a beat-up. I love his open letter reply. You really gotta wonder what the fuck has happened to the Herald. It's turning into a Murdoch-style rag, don't you think?
Why are you slagging off Georgia BTW? Sport? Turn it on that dick Sian. His opinions on Iraq's inflation/economy are well spurious. But expresses it well, as usual. You gotta wonder about that guy. Love, Malkie.
Hey Malkie...
Haven't been following the Hoge's tax saga but I'm sure the whole thing is just a big misunderstanding.
The SMH is almost unreadable these days; a putrid melange of celebrity gossip, faux-news, press-releases and SMS polls.
As for Georgia, she needs to learn to separate private conversations from public fodder or she can go fuck herself.
I'm a bit over this blogging thing just now; might take a bit of a break soon...
Well, that would suck.
Give it up, Georgia.
You are persona non grata here just now...
No Georgia.
As usual, in your rush to make yourself the centre of our universe, this isn't about me not being able to take it.
In case you haven't noticed, I love it; I go out of my way to give you feeble-minded nanas an opportunity to plunge your witty knives into my back.
Meanwhile, all I get from you these days is, Fingers is old, Fingers is bald, Fingers would be a terrible root, Fingers is a creepy pervert...
Too boring for words, mate.
Anyway, don't want to keep you from telling us more about your scintillating life...
OK, group hug everybody.
I love you guys...
Except you fingers. Cos that would mean another repeated year at Man School, and I am getting to the point where I know the textbook for subjects like "Emotionally Stunted - You Don't Have To Grow" and "Sex and Women - a Necessary Evil" off by heart.
The next cunt that tries to hug me I'm gonna deck. Had too much of that shit when I lived in Byron Bay. I'm in Biarritz at the mo. No surf and the over-priced hotel is a dump but town is interesting. Dropped $200 at the casino yesterday but where else is there a casino right on the beach? You can literally walk off the sand and into the bear-pit. It's sort of an up-market Bondi without the Kiwis and drunks. But seems every second shop is a "surf shop". Even Quiksilver has an outlet here - right on the beach. And the town is full of Poms - they fly Ryanair at 40 euros return or something ridiculous.
Charlie has mastered the nuances of the word "fuck". We came to a "bouchon" - traffic jam the other day and Chas (sitting in the babyseat in the back) pulled his thumb out of his mouth and said "Oh fuck!". Then after a few minutes of our waiting in the jam he made another comment - "C'mon bozos!" I don't know where the little fucker gets it from, really I don't.
I hate the Swans.
mmmm roast pork and apple sauce sandwiches....
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