This timeless classic of French cuisine brings age-old mastery of everything pork into your kitchen, one easy-to-follow step at a time.

Every town in France has at least one charcutier, whose windows are dressed with astonishing displays of delicious food: pâté, terrines, galantines, jambon, saucissons, and boudins. The charcutier will also sell olives, anchovies, and condiments, as well as various salads of his own creation, making it an essential stop when assembling picnics or impromptu meals. But the real skill of the charcutier lies in his transformation of the pig into an array of delicacies; a trade which goes back at least as far as classical Rome, when Gaul was famed for its hams.

First published in 1969, Jane Grigson's classic Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery is a guide and a recipe book. She describes every type of charcuterie available for purchase and how to make them yourself. She describes how to braise, roast, pot-roast, and stew all cuts of pork, how to make terrines, and how to cure ham and make sausages at home.

Jane Grigson was born in Gloucester, England and brought up in Sunderland, where her father George Shipley McIntire was town clerk.[1] She attended Sunderland Church High School and Casterton School, Westmorland, then went on to Newnham College, Cambridge University, where she read English. On graduating from university in 1949, she spent three months in Florence.