Suckling Pig Day

What the day is

Suckling Pig Day is observed on December 18. A suckling pig is a piglet still feeding on milk, generally a few weeks old, and it is cooked whole.

Origin and background

The mid-December date is not arbitrary. Whole roast pig is the Christmas Eve centerpiece across a wide band of the world, and this sits a week ahead of it. In Spain it is cochinillo, associated above all with Segovia. In the Philippines and across the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, lechon anchors the Nochebuena table. Portugal has leitao, and roast suckling pig has a long ceremonial role in Chinese cooking, including as an offering at ancestral rites.

The reason it is cooked whole comes down to the animal being milk-fed. The meat is pale, lean and tender with a great deal of connective tissue that breaks down readily, and the skin is thin enough to crisp into something like glass rather than the thick crackling of an adult pig. Cooking it in pieces wastes both properties.

The technique everywhere follows the same logic even where the seasonings differ completely. The skin is dried thoroughly, often left uncovered overnight, because surface moisture steams the skin instead of crisping it. The cooking then runs low and slow to render the fat and soften the collagen, finishing with a blast of high heat or hot oil to blister the surface. Spanish tradition makes a display of the result by carving the roast with the edge of a plate, which works because the meat offers no resistance.

It is also worth being plain that this is not a dish everyone will want, and the day belongs to a food tradition rather than to an obligation.

How to take part

• Order it at a restaurant that already does it, which is by far the most practical route.
• If you do roast one, dry the skin uncovered overnight. Nothing else matters as much.
• Go low and slow first and finish hot, rather than the other way around.
• Try porchetta instead for the same effect from an adult pig and an ordinary oven.
• Buy from a farm you can ask questions of, which matters more with this than with most meat.