“You mustn’t write your book until you witness the ritual killing of a pig, ” chef Alain Dutournier told me. “That’s how you’ll understand how important pigs are to us. They’re one of the pillars of our cuisine. When we kill a pig, we know we’ll have food on our table for months: bacon, ham, salt pork, confits, sausages . . . so, please, go back to the countryside and see how we do the slaughter.”
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