Wine pairing story : Jellied pork feet

An unexpected delicacy at rest Tout est bon, dans le cochon - or everything is good in the pig, even the unlikeliest part...
Here is a dish which I just rediscovered after having bought some during a weekend in the Loire : the jellied pork feet, a cheap delicacy proving indeed that every thing is tasty in a pig, even these feet that spend so much time foraging in mud and trash...
It reminds me the cox tail which is also so good in spite of having had a life stuck between flies and smelly droppings... Life is indeed mysterious when you think twice about it.

The charcuterie truck I was strolling across the small market place of Saint Aignan (a small town along the Cher river) like I use to do when I spend a weekend in the Loire, and you know how it is, you use to stop always at the same stands and forget to watch out for new ideas. By the way, I often fall upon Catherine of Clos Roche Blanche here, as well as Noella (she loves fish and the fish stand has very fresh products) or Christophe Foucher, this market may be the most frequented by natural-wine vintners...

There are several butcher/charcuterie trucks like these in the Saint-Aignan market and one day I stopped by this one to see what they had in store. I was amazed at the pork feet, so big, this nice jelly and the thought that they were ready to eat helped me decide a try.
With the jelly all around the feet, you could mistake the dish for something else at first glance because the shape and fingers weren't clearly readable compared with the typical raw pig feet (picture left).

There were several people in line, all elderly, and I crossed my fingers hoping that no one who ask for these pork feet before my turn. This charcutier manages a charcuterie/meat shop in a village on the other side of the Cher from Saint Aignan, in Noyers-sur-Cher, and he sells also on this market place on saturday mornings. The target They had two types of pieds de porc, one was the regular pied en gelée (jellied pork feet) while the other was pied pané, with a special coating around the feet. I'll try the latter another time, but the jellied pork feet was my choice of the day, I wanted to see how close it was from the fromage de tête or head cheese which I successfully made myself on this story. My choice on the scale The price was a good argument for my spending move, this foot cost only 2,5 € a kilogram, and the whole thing happens to weigh a kilogram. I chose the biggest and nicest of the available feet and the thing was wrapped and paid right away.
The charcutier told me that he used only the front feet, the ones that have mopre muscle and flesh, and that he used only the jelly coming from the pork, not substitutes like it is often done by semi-industrial facilities masquerading as artisanal producers. Here again, wine and charcuterie share a common ground. I didn't ask about the type of pig he used (organic, free range ?), guessing that you can't ask too much, especially at this price. Pork-feet experiences I made a couple of such purchases on different weekends, each time at this food truck. I'm getting hooked on pork feet, especially when I'm eating alone, you'll understand why below.
There's lots of fat within the flesh, but it makes it nonetheless because there is muscle and cartilage. Note that the fork & knife are just for decoration here, because I use only my hands and teeth to get everything I can eat in the pork feet. This dish is not something you want other people watch you eat like Neandertals, especially people you know and who may discover an unsuspected side of your personality. Would the pig inoculate me with its voracity through its tender feet ?... Eating in the feet Frankly, I'll try to ask but I don't think there is any other way to eat the jellied pork feet than the "primitive" one, with your bare fingers and teeth. The experience is quite strange, you begin to put aside the foot bones one by one, some very small, some very big, like for human feet I guess. It's all texture here, with variations between the flesh, the layers of fat, the jelly and the cartilage. It is not really easy to understand why I like this dish, like the head cheese by the way, but I think it has a lot to do whith the nuances of textures found here. Bones and wine When I'm eating pork feet, I'd almost forget the wine but I stay focusedthis time and thought about a wine that could fit. For me it had to be a white, I may be wrong but that was the starting point. Then, as we have a dish with mostly texture to offer, I thought it would be nice to have a wine more on texture than aromas. I thought to La Lune 2009 by Mark Angeli, not that this wine is neutral aromaticly, I also love its mineral refineness and honey notes, but I love it particularly for its mouthfeel and fullness, and I wanted to try it on this occasion (I don't need to be pushed too much to open of of the bottles of La Lune which I keep in the Loire).
The wine was lovely like always, especially on the first sip. The 2nd sip appeared more sugary maybe than the first after crunching in thr pork foot, which was maybe a disadvantage. This wine is a dry Chenin but it may have a few grams of residual sugar which show up more when you eat such a dish, that's the way I felt at least. I may have missed the target here because of that slight imbalance with the jellied pork foot, but I finished the bottle later and very happily, in front of the wood cookstove (may hasn't been so warm untilm now)... Just bones You end up with a lot of bones with this dish, very good for the children, to teach them real food through play. I counted 34 of them, some very tiny and some large. In another occasion (with another foot) I counted 28 of them, so my guess is that the foot was cut shorter. Another Chenin I made another try with another Chenin, from Anjou too : Le Blanc du Clown, a wine made by Jo Pithon. The blanc du Clown is from what I learned later, a confidential cuvée that never reached the market. I bought several bottles of this cuvée through unconventional channels (classified material here). This was a good pick, with a slightly drier mouth (in terms of sugar). The wine is also mineral, it has a neat, straight mouth with the generous ampleness that pairs well here. But this is all an excuse to try more jellied pork feet, and I may soon make a try with a crisp Sauvignon... The wrapping caught my attention The whole scene But always remember... ...always remember that these feet spent their life in the most vulgar and humble condition in order to develop the qualities that will bring them to your plate. There's maybe a hidden message of mother Nature here, like The most beautiful flowers that grow in the foulest-smelling soils.

Let's remember the words of Charles Monselet (1825-1888), a French essayist and journalist who was nicknamed at that time the King of gastronoms. He wrote a few poems or odes devoted to everyday delicacies, and here is the one he wote to honor the pig, and in which at the end, he even manages to rhyme fange (mire) with ange (angel). The French tuned it into one sentence : Tout es bon dans le cocon...

Le Cochon

Car tout est bon en toi: chair, graisse, muscle, tripe ! On t'aime galantine, on t'adore boudin Ton pied, dont une sainte a consacré le type, Empruntant son arôme au sol périgourdin,

Eût réconcilié Socrate avec Xanthippe. Ton filet, qu'embellit le cornichon badin, Forme le déjeuner de l'humble citadin; Et tu passes avant l'oie au frère Philippe.

Mérites précieux et de tous reconnus ! Morceaux marqués d'avance, innombrables charnus! Philosophe indolent qui mange ce que l'on mange ! Comme, dans notre orgueil, nous sommes bien venus A vouloir, n'est-ce pas, te reprocher ta fange ? Adorable cochon ! animal roi- Cher ange !