One of the things I really care about is knowing where my food comes from, especially animal products. For the past five years I have been buying beef, pork, and lamb from a family member that raises livestock naturally. He can’t call it organic because of the very specific requirements as stated by the Oregon Tilth, the only seal, stamp, or “verbiage” that has any meaning. Don’t buy into the labels that say all natural, local, cage free, or free-range, to name a few.
Know where your food comes from. The meat I buy is living outdoors. The hogs are a breed of Berkshire (for fat and flavor) and Durock (for body type). The pigs are quite happy roaming around through the woods and rooting for nuts and other things that pigs eat naturally. They walk on the ground not on a metal platform. The get sunshine, not artificial and UV lighting. The get fresh air not gross air circulated through a huge CFO (concentrated feeding organization).
The flavor of this pork is amazing. It actually tastes like something. You can see the different colors of the muscles from exercise and eating iron rich grasses. The only downside, if there is one, is only slight, and that is that the animals are naturally leaner (hence the need to cross breed with a fatty Berkshire). If a chop is cut too thin it will dry out a little before you can get the nice caramelization that enhances the natural flavors.
When my cousin contacted me late last year stating that 2011 pricing was going to increase because of rising costs for corn (damn ethanol!) and fuel I opted to buy half a hog and a hind-quarter of grass-fed beef at locked-in 2010 pricing. I only had to wait for July or August for the animals to be ready.
Now, I could have had my cousins processor butcher the hog as they do for all other customers, with set weights for chops and such, but that is not good enough. As I stated, a thinner chop from one of these hogs can dry out quickly. I offered to drive directly to the processor to pick up the hog and beef whole. Aside for paying for the animal’s weight I was only going to have to pay the processor their $14 fee for the slaughter. No butchering fees. No delivery fees. And I know that the animal is fresh as can be. It was only slaughtered the day before. You can’t get fresher than that unless you kill it yourself. Maybe one day!
Now, I have half of a hog on my butcher block table and need to decide what to do with it. With a brand new 19” bone saw, a butcher knife, a cleaver, a boning knife, a ball of kitchen string, and my vacuum sealer I’m ready!
There are essentially only three “primal” sections to a hog: the shoulder, the loin, and the ham (rear leg).
From the shoulder:
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The shank (forearm) – leave it whole and braise it or even deep fry it for amazing crispy cracklin’ goodness.
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The picnic – a group of muscles with good fat percentage for juice roasts.
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The butt (not from the ham area as you would think) – this group of fatty muscles has the ideal protein to fat ratio for making sausages, which is exactly what I’m going to do with it.
The loin:
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Belly – homemade bacon. Need I say more?
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Spareribs – off the belly
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Baby back ribs – off the back side, naturally
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Boneless chops – technically a chop has a bone, but I’m cutting these babies thick so chop is more accurate than saying “cutlet”
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Chops – I’ll be cutting the standard chop as well as utilizing the tenderloin for some “T-Bones”.
The ham:
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I’m not set up for curing (yet) so making a traditional ham is out. Instead, I’ll break the leg into the various muscles and tie up roasts.
Cutting the hog myself means very little scraps that would normally be sold as ground pork. Most of this is just trimmings from roasts to make them more uniform and from scaping the bones, and the lovely cheeks and jowels from the head. I’ll also take the “fat back” area and cure it for homemade salt pork.
Much more on this little piggy as he goes into my belly.
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