Butchering a pig: from Spidey to salami

Alex Renton with his children and Spidey, the Tamworth pig, ready for butchering (the pig, not the children) Photograph: Murdo Macleod/Murdo Macleod

Renato Toros, a butcher from Friuli, Italy, helps butcher Andy Winterburn from Berwick-on-Tweed. Both men’s techniques were quite different – Andy was amazed at how much time Renato took, and how little of the pig he threw away Photograph: Murdo Macleod

Once I would have seen pathos. Now I see roast trotters, ham hock (smoked), shanks, some lovely leg joints and an awful lot of spiced crackling Photograph: Murdo Macleod

Both the sausage and the salami meat went through this coarse grained mincer Photograph: Murdo Macleod

Salt, white wine, coriander powder and pepper went into the sausage mix Photograph: Murdo Macleod

Butcher Renato Toros with 100 Italian spiced sausages, ready for frying Photograph: Murdo Macleod

Pig butcher’s lunch at Peelham Farm. We ate the soft bits including brain frittata, fried liver and cheek, and cured ham from an earlier butchering Photograph: Murdo Macleod

Spideypig’s brain weighed about 150 grams and went straight into a frittata – a traditional dish on an Italian pig butchering day Photograph: Murdo Macleod

The livers were sliced and fried up with onions, juniper, bay and a little white wine for lunch for the butchers. We put in some of the cheeks sliced as well, to vary the texture. The rest of the liver went into a terrine Photograph: Murdo Macleod

There’s 2kg of usable meat on the head – none of it is wasted in traditional Italian butchering, but in Britain most butchers throw the head away. The ears we bacon-cured, and then chopped one up fine, fried it and served it with the pig liver terrine Photograph: Murdo Macleod

The cheeks are some of the sweetest and most tender meat on the pig. In Britain they are occasionally sold as bath chaps – we ate them chopped and fried with the pig's liver Photograph: Murdo Macleod

Butcher Renato Toros strips away skin and fat: much of it went into cotechini sausages, fermented for five days and then ready for boiling with lentils Photograph: Murdo Macleod

Cotechini in casings made from ox intestine and salsiccie sausages in sheep intestine, are hung to dry in the Peelham Farm cold store before packing Photograph: Murdo Macleod

All the fat was used by the Italian butcher. The best was put aside for curing as lardo, and we boiled down more with apple and bay to make creamy white strutto, pig lard, for bottling and storing Photograph: Murdo Macleod

Renato sprinkles black pepper onto the boned and salted belly meat that will be rolled up and cured as pancetta, Italian bacon Photograph: Murdo Macleod

The best lean meat was reserved for the salamis Photograph: Murdo Macleod

The salami mince is stuffed into a casing made from a reconstituted pig's intestine and hung Photograph: Murdo Macleod

We got 21 350g salamis from the pig. Here farmer Chris Walton prepares them for hanging in a warm, humid cupboard for initial fermentation. They will be ready in three months Photograph: Murdo Macleod