Sam Sifton’s ‘No-Recipe Recipes’ and the Reinvention of Kitchen Improvisation | Eater

"Presented in a multi-page family- and tradition-rich recipe for a smoked island hog roast (or How to Host a Pig Roast), this account ties a heritage island hog breed to the author’s family land on the Georgia coast and to Gullah Geechee culinary history. It blends practical, often hands-on instruction — preferred breed notes; how to build a roasting pit using repurposed box springs; the old trick of placing an apple in the animal to promote even heat; and rendering fatback into leaf lard for frying — with ancestral context, aiming to point readers toward success while assuming some prior cooking knowledge." - Marian Bull