Langdale Farm is a tiny free range pig farm in Tasmania raising rare breed Berkshire and Saddleback pigs. The farm is owned and run by English couple Oliver and Fiona Stocker who have lived at Glengarry in the Tamar Valley of northern Tasmania since 2006. |
The pigs kept on the farm are rare breeds, mostly Berkshires and Wessex Saddlebacks and a cross of the two. Rare breeds have been around for a long time, are slow growing varieties with superior flavour. They're usually good natured and favoured by small holders. The pork produced by Wessex Saddlebacks is listed in the Slow Food Movement's Ark of Taste as a foodstuff that is under threat and worthy of being preserved.
Oliver Stocker began keeping pigs after watching one too many episodes of River Cottage. When you have pigs, you have pork, and as an Englishman, he was keen to try his hand at ways of making traditional pork sausages and bacon, all the foods he loved as a young man raised in Suffolk. All of Langdale Farm's smallgoods are now made on the farm, by Oliver. The bacon is smoked in smokers he has also made himself. The farm's produce is a labour of love.
Fiona Stocker is a writer. Her book Apple Island Wife - Slow Living in Tasmania, was published by Unbound in December 2018.
Where to purchase:
Bookshops in Tasmania - available from June 2019.
Bookshops in the UK - available to order.
Buy from Amazon.com.au
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Buy from Book Depository (free international postage).