Faggot (food)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A faggot is a kind of meatball, a traditional dish in the UK, especially the southwest of England, Wales, and the Black Country. It is made from unwanted meat off-cuts and offal, especially pork. A faggot is traditionally made from pig heart, liver and fatty belly meat or bacon minced together, with herbs added for flavouring and sometimes breadcrumbs. The mixture is shaped in the hand into balls, wrapped round with "caul" (a membrane from the pig's abdomen), and baked.
The first use in print cited in the OED is in 1851, from Thomas Mayhew, although this appears to be a calzone or pasty-like dish, with an outer wrapper of caul, covering an filling of mixed pork offal. This was in London.
The dish saw its greatest popularity with the rationing during World War II but has become less popular in recent years. Faggots are usually homemade and are to be found in traditional butchers' shops and market stalls.
A popular dish is "faggots and peas," which is often served with gravy. The faggot and pea batch is a common post-pub snack in the West Midlands.
The best-known commercial brand is Mr. Brain's Faggots, a frozen food product available in Britain and Ireland, which are made up of liver and onions rolled into meatballs and served in a sauce. These commercially available faggots differ significantly from the traditional recipe.
As listed on the packet, Mr Brain's Pork Faggots contain "Water, rusks, pork rind, pork liver (15%), onion, pork (4%), pork fat, wheat flour, salt, sage, spice extracts". The accompanying "Rich West Country Sauce" (a sort of thick gravy) contains "Water, lard, wheat flour, modified maize starch, tomato puree, salt, colour (E150C), yeast extract, sugar, onion flavour, spice & herb extracts (celery)".
Pictures of the product are a popular joke in some Western countries due to additional meanings of the subject noun.
It is also a traditional dish in Italy.
Once known as "ducks" in Lancashire as in "savoury ducks". They contained meat with onions and herbs, cooked inside a skin (often of caul fat from around the kidneys). "In Leigh market in 1905 you could buy a savoury duck rolled up in an oatmeal cake".
Faggots were used as the subject of an infamous 2004 radio advert by the UK supermarket chain Somerfield[1]. The commercial featured a husband challenging his wife's repetitive routine of a set meal for each day of the week. While he wanted lasagna, he was told that, as it was Friday, he was to have faggots. He responded: "I've nothing against faggots, I just don't fancy them.".
This advert was subsequently deemed to have breached the rules on Good Taste, Decency and Offence to Public Feeling of the Advertising and Sponsorship Code, and was banned from future re-broadcast by the industry regulator, Ofcom.
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