The first time I ate Schweinssulz properly was at a Heuriger outside Gumpoldskirchen on one of those childhood trips with Gretel and my grandmother Eva. I was maybe ten. The wine tavern had a garden under old chestnut trees, and somebody put a wooden board in front of me with sliced aspic, dark bread, and a little jug of pumpkin seed oil so green it looked almost black. I remember Gretel telling me to try it before I decided I didn't like it. She was right, of course. The pork was tender and clean-tasting, the jelly firm but not rubbery, and the Kernöl turned the whole plate into something I couldn't stop eating.

Schweinssulz is peasant thrift at its most elegant. You take the parts of the pig that are rich in collagen, the knuckle, the trotter, a bit of shoulder for good meat, and you simmer them low and slow until the cooking liquid turns to natural jelly when it cools. No packet gelatin. No shortcuts. The pork sets itself. You slice it cold, dress it with vinegar and raw onion, and pour Styrian Kernöl over everything. That's the whole dish.

This is Heuriger food, wine tavern food, the kind of thing you eat outside on a warm evening with a glass of Grüner Veltliner and nowhere to be. It's not complicated. It's not fancy. But it depends entirely on good ingredients and patience, and that's Austrian cooking at its most honest. Make it a day ahead. It needs the night in the fridge to set. Then slice it, dress it, and put it on the table with good bread and let people help themselves.