Mr Trotter was born from a very great love and respect for food.
It all started in an upstairs room, in a London pub: Thirty five people had come together to share a seven course dinner in which pork scratchings were the epicentre of every course: Once cooked; twice cooked; dipped into gooseberry or apple sauce; merged late into a pork terrine; crunched onto a steamy fish pie (a marvel) or dipped vertically into molten dark chocolate and stood in a circle like Stonehenge. Vanilla ice cream became the all important moon. On that one the jury was out.
What we learnt was that pork scratchings were potentially underplaying their role in British gastronomy. When served hot, they combined an alluring aroma with flavour and savour and crunch and they flew sublimely with so many of the eleven beers we drank.
Serving Mr Trotter hot is a revelation: Just 90 seconds in a hot oven and they are crackling. And then they adore being dipped in gooseberry or apple sauce, or in curried or spicy Mayo or guacamole. And crunched up hot on green salads will take a lacklustre leaf to higher levels; whilst their used as a crunchy finale on a fish pie turns the normal into the extraordinary.
