We catered for a large party with a bit of a difference earlier today – it was a Medieval banquet themed birthday celebration for one of our long-time customers, Neil. Neil has used our catering services several times over the years for different family occasions and also hired our machines to have his own hog roasts and spit roasts. For this event, however, he was leaving the catering to us so that he could fully enjoy his 50th birthday party with a hog roast in Fulwood.

While we have lots of various menu options, Neil’s favourite is one of our most popular hog roasts – pigs in buns, where bread rolls are filled with juicy meat, crunchy crackling, apple sauce and stuffing. He also requested a couple of nice salad dishes, our herby new potatoes, and baked potatoes, too, which would serve as the main vegetarian option as well extras for the meat-eaters. We always bring along various condiments, too, as we know that people love to have them on hog roast rolls.

We arrived at the venue nice and early on Friday afternoon, for a tea time service. A hog this size would take around 5 hours to slowly cook, so we got to it, by preparing the meat with salt and water after first scoring it all over. As it roasted away, the venue was decorated with lovely Medieval banners and crests, old-style street signs and even castle cut-outs. There were also life-size cut-outs of knights dressed in suits of armour, colourful jousters and kings and queens. The stocks was an interesting addition but it was actually a prop where partygoers could have their photo taken rather than somewhere to lock them in! The family dog rounded off the atmosphere well, as he was suitably attired in a hilarious fancy dress costume, complete with a tunic and crown.

As the hog roast in Fulwood rested after being cooked perfectly, we sliced the bread rolls, prepared the salads and tended to the potatoes, as well dishing out the sauces and stuffing. Soon, we had queues of wonderfully-dressed Medieval characters all lining up for a taste of our delicious pigs in buns.