I would really appreciate some advice. I bought a good piece of local organic pork, and followed the recipe to the letter. The meat is fabulous, but is flaking too badly to carve. Is the quality of the meat so good, that I have over cooked it?

Richard Weatherhead, Exeter, UK

1g is 1/8th of a teaspoon.

Its a pinch.

Richard, Plymouth,

How do you measure 1g without an apothecary scale?

Roger Tilbury, Worthing,

How on earth do you measure one gram without an apothecary

Roger Tilbury, Worthing,

Seems that is an excellent recipe,Iwill try . I will let you know the results.Thank you.

Fabio, Miami, USA

Heston Blumenthal's home-cured ham sounds delicious. Can you let me know how long will the cooked ham keep. Than

Caroline, Andover, MA

It sounds like the "wet" version of curing meat, as opposed to how it's done in the Colonies and even in Italy, with whole hams subjected to, say, hickory smoke(U.S.)or covered with salt, etc.(Italy, et. al.)while in storage for a lengthy period of time.

Jeff, Miami, FL USA

No mistake. Slow gentle cooking is the way forward so as not to dry our the meat through overcontraction of the muscle proteins. With such a large piece of meat it will take a long time to make sure all the muscle fibres reach 60C, also the longer cooking the better to help break down any collogen (which would normally only take place at a higher temperature than 60C).


However I'm unsure about the temperature you need to reach to remove the danger of triconosis. I thought pork need to reach 70C to be made totally safe.

Michael, London, UK

As with most of Mr Blumenthals recipes - they sound delicious as you read them then you find out you have to cook it for 43 days up a tree in Rutland whilst wearing nothing but a scarf and dancing to the strains of Joe Dolce.

johnny, london, uk

"bring slowly to the boil and then put in the oven for 32 hours."

Shurely shome mishtake?

Charles, Hong Kong,

Pig out by Heston Blumental

Is it really 150 g of coriander seeds!

Could you let me know as I am about to commence a 9 day cooking fest

Barb Wesley, malborough, Devon