My friend with the farm (you may recall I made her buy a WSM so when I visit I can do some smokin'----in fact, we recently did a venison roast someone gave her) heard a guy down the road who was butchering a hog. So we coulda' had the WHOLE THING for $200, but had nowhere to store it, so we went with some roasts and some loin meat for her, and some BELLY for me to do some proper bacon. Roughly ended up with about 76 lbs of hog for $75.
After the guy dropped it off, I went to cut her roasts or whatver into smaller steaks, and pulled back the butcher's paper, woah! Tons and tons of (really beautiful, snow white) fat. We measured 4 lbs of fat trimmed off a 9 lb roast---and that was with me leaving an inch and 1/2 or more on it!
Surprisingly, my belly was a better ratio of meat to fat. Quite meaty. So it's been curing happily, and this is day 10, so if I remember I will smoke up about 14 lbs of it tomorrow (and there's still that much or more, still uncured, in the freezer).
Can't wait to see what real bacon meat will taste like!
Oh...I also asked the guy for a butt, and he brought the ENTIRE SHOULDER. It's still in butcher's paper up in my friend's huge freezer. Jeez o pete, what on earth am I gonna' find when I unwrap THAT sucker...!
The fat was so lovely, tho, that I made her save it for future cooking. My dad says to cut slabs of it and beat it paper thin, then wrap roasts and stuff in it (that venison roast, for instance, which came out as lovely as a roast beef, except wasn't juicy, would have LOVED the pork fat). I'm thinking of rendering lard so I can experience the thrill of genuine cracklin's! Anyone done that?
The good thing about this meat is that supposedly it has no hormones, and no antibiotics. He did put the hog on a high protein feed for the last month or so, he said. Sure didn't put it on a treadmill!
I would have bought a whole ham, but I have seen green ones in my local market (lots of Hispanics at this particular store), and there was simply nowhere to store the thing.
After the guy dropped it off, I went to cut her roasts or whatver into smaller steaks, and pulled back the butcher's paper, woah! Tons and tons of (really beautiful, snow white) fat. We measured 4 lbs of fat trimmed off a 9 lb roast---and that was with me leaving an inch and 1/2 or more on it!
Surprisingly, my belly was a better ratio of meat to fat. Quite meaty. So it's been curing happily, and this is day 10, so if I remember I will smoke up about 14 lbs of it tomorrow (and there's still that much or more, still uncured, in the freezer).
Can't wait to see what real bacon meat will taste like!
Oh...I also asked the guy for a butt, and he brought the ENTIRE SHOULDER. It's still in butcher's paper up in my friend's huge freezer. Jeez o pete, what on earth am I gonna' find when I unwrap THAT sucker...!
The fat was so lovely, tho, that I made her save it for future cooking. My dad says to cut slabs of it and beat it paper thin, then wrap roasts and stuff in it (that venison roast, for instance, which came out as lovely as a roast beef, except wasn't juicy, would have LOVED the pork fat). I'm thinking of rendering lard so I can experience the thrill of genuine cracklin's! Anyone done that?
The good thing about this meat is that supposedly it has no hormones, and no antibiotics. He did put the hog on a high protein feed for the last month or so, he said. Sure didn't put it on a treadmill!
I would have bought a whole ham, but I have seen green ones in my local market (lots of Hispanics at this particular store), and there was simply nowhere to store the thing.