Cabeça De Porco

"Once the pig's head is cut off close to the shoulders, singed, and very well cleaned, open it from underneath and remove the bones from the neck, jaws, and snout up to the eyes. After this, soak it in water to bleed, then dry it. Place it on a cloth, lard it with thick bacon, and season with plenty of salt, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, coriander seeds, bay leaves, basil, marjoram, all pounded together. Cover it with slices of bacon, wrap it in a cloth, tie it up very tightly, and place it in a pot. Add equal parts water and wine, onion slices, carrots, leeks, lemon slices, parsley, bay leaf, a little thyme, rosemary, salt, and whole pepper. Let it simmer gently for five or six hours. Once cooked, let it cool in its own broth to absorb more flavor. Then, drain it, remove the cloth, and when it is well dried and trimmed, serve it on a napkin garnished with parsley, as a cold cut or as an entrée. The wild boar's head can be prepared in the same way."

Early printed Portuguese cookbooks like Rigaud's employed dense, flowing prose, assuming that readers had prior kitchen experience. Instructions are delivered as continuous narrative rather than in the bullet-point precision we expect today. Spellings are pre-orthographic-reform: for example, 'hum' (um), 'chamuscada' (singeing), and 'metta-se' (put). Ingredients and amounts are generalized, and steps are described through actions rather than times or detailed weights, reflecting the intuitive, craft-based knowledge of 18th-century cooks.