I went to the press launch of the Waitrose Save our Bacon campaign today in a trendy restaurant in London’s Borough market.
As well as samples of excellent British pork, the event featured a sausage masterclass and demonstrations on how to cure bacon by Cumbrian farmer Peter Gott.
What was really good to see was the number of people crowded around the demonstrations, keen to see how a pig is butchered and what goes into sausages.
And while it seemed slightly odd seeing pig carcasses scattered around a very posh restaurant, people didn’t seemed to be put off their bacon sandwiches.
The led me to think that perhaps, at long last, the work farmers have done to teach the public about the connection between the farm and fork was finally paying off; that people were no longer squeamish about being reminded that the food they eat used to run around on a farm.
We’ve certainly come a long way, but perhaps not as far as I dared hope, as just as I was about to take a photo of the pig farmers and chefs who were at the launch, a lady in a smart suit came rushing over.
“Oh, you’re not going to take a photo in front of that pig carcass are you,” she asked, pointing at the neatly butchered pig on display and looking horrified.
“It looks far too dead.”