Pig’s trotters were a bit of a mystery to me until recently. I had only ever used them in stocks and soups. With so many joints and cartilage, the feet release large amounts of gelatin when simmered, giving the final broth a rich mouthfeel. However, once the feet had delivered their gelatin payload, I always picked them out of the pot and threw them away.

Then I started coming across dishes in which the trotter itself is eaten, notably in the fantastic BBC mini-series Marco. The series, which I think is from the late 1980s, though I don’t know exactly what year, is a glimpse into the kitchen at Harvey’s, a London restaurant where the chef Marco Pierre White … Continue reading.