Michael Ruhlman on Butchering a Whole Pig
Michael Ruhlman procured a humanely raised, humanely slaughtered Berkshire pig from a nearby farm and spent the weekend breaking it down and making sausage. It's enough to share among three families, affordable ($1.65/pound), and a lot of work.
But the actual work of breaking it all down, storing it properly, labeling it, using everything—roasting the bones for stock, curing the bellies and one of the two hams, all the shoulder and trim for sausage and pate, let me tell you, it’s exhausting work and no good on the back. My young cousin Ryan, 6’5” and an athletic 225 pounds easy, put his back out and was forced to suffer through another Browns loss horizontally and sans sausage the day after wrestling with the hog.
Ruhlman goes on to ask,
Who does not have access to hand-raised pigs, or rather, how many people live more than three hours from a farm that raises hogs? I'm betting my mom in West Palm would have a hard time locating a hog she could buy anywhere in her state. But what about Marlies in OK, Carri in AK, Elise in CA? How reasonable is it to ask more people to eat this way?
Ruhlman updated his post yesterday to respond to the many comments he's received and the answer is, it's probably not that reasonable. "Space, time and knowledge" are the major obstacles for most regular folk. Even so, knowledge at least appears to be a smaller and smaller barrier as pig butchering classes and demos have become more common. Here in New York, The Brooklyn Kitchen regularly hosts pig butchering classes. And Slow Food has sponsored pig butchering demos in New York as well as Boston (and probably elsewhere). What about you, serious eaters? Are you ready to go whole hog?
Related:
In Videos: The Whole Hog Project
How to Butcher a Whole Pig's Head
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
14 Comments:
I am totally ready, I've had plenty of experience with small and large game but never a pig. As far as access I think people don't know what's available. We lived in Boston (actually Dedham for the locals) for 4 years before we found out there were about a dozen meat CSAs and other 'fresh from the farm' meat resources. We didn't look and it took that long for the info to find us. Now in NC our farms are even closer and higher profile. I think their are a few big challenges: people don't like their food to look like animals (hence butchering is an issue), humanly raised animals are 'expensive', its too much effort to have to go someplace other than the one grocery store we like. Kosher is an accept way for animals to die, it seems like a non-torturous life is a fair requirement too. Luckily its getting a lot more press these days. I'd love to take a proper butchering class - I've always sort of winged it.
christopher at 6:40PM on 12/11/08
Gosh, brings back memories of when I was a child in Kentucky.
Every fall we (my Father) would butcher 1 or 2 hogs. The hams would
be salted and hung to be smoked, the head of the pig made into souse.
The rest of the pig would used from nose to tail, nothing wasted.
Some of the lard would even be made into lye soap .
Wow, the memories are flooding back :-)
pamelakrest at 7:17PM on 12/11/08
I watched a whole hog demo last week, and they are NOT kidding when they say it is workworkwork, but also an art. The guy doing the butchering, Adam Tiberio "The Meat Guy" has a 7-part YouTube series where he butchers a steer in the living room of his apartment. Quite awesome. Anyway, back to the pig--I was so impressed with how much of the hog could, and was used. (I am now curing my own bacon, that I'll probably cook in the oven tomorrow while studying for finals.)
If we could all be more aware of what meat we are eating and make sure we ate from sources that used the WHOLE hog (or other animal) we would have much more sustainable eating habits, which will lead to a much happier planet (and tastier food, of course!)
veggieout at 8:13PM on 12/11/08
P.S. If you look at the pictures from the Boston link the guy butchering is Adam. (I was there!)
veggieout at 8:15PM on 12/11/08
@veggieout: I just searched YouTube for the series you refer to but couldn't find it. Do you have a link? Could you drop it here? Thanks!
Adam Kuban at 9:29PM on 12/11/08
I'd love to. I haven't seen any demos but I know there are books available and with the 'net it's easy enough to run down the tools. My biggest hold-up is space (these are activities that take up a fair amount of room).
renoles at 10:11PM on 12/11/08
If I weren't living in an apartment without any space whatsoever for an industrial-sized freezer, I'd do it in a second. I had a friend ask about sharing a pig from a local farm this summer, and I seriously considered it ... It just wasn't practical at this stage. Someday, I'll have the space....
threeForks at 10:29PM on 12/11/08
@Adam
Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mWn8TxUulY
That's just part 1---you find it on YouTube under "The Hungry Butcher"
veggieout at 12:16AM on 12/12/08
Humanely raised, humanely slaughtered... still dead. I'm sorry I had to see that image first thing in the morning. I've always flirted with vegetarianism and this photo is helping me get there. Poor piggie.
emilydev at 7:59AM on 12/12/08
I'm in NC...anybody know of any places offer butchering classes? As many 'cooking schools' and farms that are here (particularly around Durham and Chapel Hill), this would be such a great skill to learn. And I think it is something that would be better learned (and more appreciated) in person rather than online video or tutorial.
dj_scribe at 10:16AM on 12/12/08
I'm glad I'm not the only one who's creeped out by that severed head.
buffy at 12:57PM on 12/12/08
If Ruhlman is referring to West Palm in Florida, then he is showing a complete lack of familiarity with the state. My cousins raise hogs in their back yards not too far north and west of Palm Beach county.
pemabuk at 1:31PM on 12/12/08
Yeah, I think the close up photo of the severed pig head was a bit much. I mean, I'm all about bacon, don't get me wrong...but I like mine center cut, hickory smoked, sliced thinly and neatly vacuume-packed please, thanks.
And goody for you to all of those adventurous souls who think it's best to turn your livingrooms into slaughter houses for "humanely raised" animals which are still going to be butchered and end up on your plate. Frankly, this horrible economy, my fondness for non-blood-and-guts stained berber carpeting, and a serious lack of 15 extra hours laying around to use for slicing and dicing my own meat will mean I'll be shopping for my pork at Kroger, when it's on sale...and I don't think I'm a bad person for doing it.
juliebugsmama at 2:54PM on 12/12/08
No way. I like my meat removed from the grisly reality. So sue me.
chanterelle at 5:34PM on 12/13/08