Faggot (food) facts for kids
Faggots, gravy, mashed potatoes and marrowfat processed peas
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| Course | Main dish |
|---|---|
| Serving temperature | Hot |
| Main ingredients | Pig's heart, liver, fatty belly meat or bacon |
Faggots are meatballs made from minced off-cuts and offal, especially pork (traditionally pig's heart, liver, and fatty belly meat or bacon) together with herbs for flavouring and sometimes added bread crumbs. It is a traditional dish in the United Kingdom, especially South and Mid Wales and the English Midlands.
Faggots originated as a traditional cheap food consumed by ordinary country people in Western England, particularly west Wiltshire and the West Midlands. Their popularity spread from there, 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.
Preparation and serving
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.
Production
The dish gained in popularity during the rationing in World War II, but declined over the following decades. 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.
See also
In Spanish: Faggot para niños
