Somewhere in the Black Country in 1880, a butcher's wife took the bits of the pig that would otherwise have been wasted, minced them with breadcrumbs and sage, wrapped them in caul fat, and served the result with mushy peas and onion gravy for tuppence a plate. This was a faggot. It fed the Midlands and Wales for a hundred and fifty years. Then we got squeamish. Offal became something to hide rather than eat, the butchers stopped making them, and the dish survives only as a sad rubbery thing in a yellow box that old men still buy out of loyalty to a memory their grandchildren will never share. The recipe: - 500g minced pork belly. - 250g pig's liver, finely chopped. - 1 large onion, finely diced. - 2 cloves garlic. - A handful of fresh sage. - Salt. Black pepper. A grating of nutmeg. - Caul fat to wrap. Mix everything in a bowl. Form into balls the size of a small fist. Wrap each in caul. Brown in dripping. Braise in a tin in the oven with onion gravy for an hour at 170C. Serve with mash and mushy peas. A faggot contains the heart, liver, lung, and kidney of an animal that lived outdoors and ate grass. A McDonald's chicken nugget contains chicken paste, refined seed oil, soy isolate, and a stabiliser called sodium phosphate. We swapped one for the other and called it progress.