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SAMANTHA SPOONER: UoN students need a lesson in roasting pork


To have a good roast, pork you need to get certain things right. Typically use a rolled pork loin with a nice layer of fat on it – if you don’t like this, it’s easy to cut away once it’s cooked.

The pork must be just-cooked, not pink but not over-done. To get some good crackling, the trick is to get the pork skin very dry before cooking it, it’s also important to score the skin and get a lot of salt onto it.

Start with a very hot oven and turn the temperature down after about 15 minutes. I like to layer carrots, sage, onions and apples in the baking tray with the pork, this can be broken down with the pork juices and stock to make a delicious gravy later on.

On Thursday, while making this roast for my family, I thought of the recent University of Nairobi protests over the deaths of two students, one whilst in police custody (which could have been a suicide) and one during the protest.

Similar to making roast pork, you need to get a few things right for protests to be effective.

A good protest is an indicator of a healthy democracy, they are meant to be disruptive, non-institutionalised and they must make a statement – the combination of all these ingredients have the potential to effect change later on.

In this scenario the students had a couple of things right; the protest needed to happen, we shouldn’t be losing lives at the hands of the police without them being properly accounted for, and they generated plenty of attention. But that’s it.

Instead of garnering national support for the cause they end up angering Nairobians, often the protests end up laced with criminal acts, and then there’s no sympathy for the cause.

Dear UoN, if you keep turning up the heat you’re going to dry out the meat and burn the crackling, your voices are already falling on deaf ears.

Get this roast pork right, the positive changes you could effect could do so much for all of us!