Hog Heaven

I remember going with my mother to the butcher shop or the butcher shop area in our family owned grocery store and hearing her ask for different cuts of meat and discussing the qualities of each piece.  I wonder if mine is the first generation where we really don’t understand cuts of meat and if we accept what ever quality is in the refrigerator or freezer at our big chain store.  We are not involved with our food.

I our home we have strived to eat fresh and local when ever possible. When it comes to meat, other then venison or chicken, I purchased what ever Wal-Mart had in the cooler.  I never thought about where it came from how it was raised.  Then I watched FOOD INC. and was horrified.  But instead of choosing different routes of obtaining meat I just cut back.

This past Sunday evening I had a conversation with one of the high school teachers about a topic I have never had before.  It went something like this.

“So, Lisa, how would you like it cut and packaged?” Mr. Von

“Uhhh, I don’t know.  I guess I have to trust your judgment,” me.

“Well, you’ll get half a hog. What we usually do is….” Mr. Von proceeds to describe in great detail, with great pride how the students will process the hog into different cuts, what goes back to the butcher for smoking and what I can pick up Monday afternoon.

“Sounds good, I think 2-4 pork chops per bag and 5- 1 lb packages of bacon and 2 smaller hams rather then one big one.  It’ll just be the three of us for Easter this year,” me. 

My husband, Rick, came into the room just as I was finishing the conversation with a very quizzical look on his face. “We just bought half a hog!”  Our school offers a number of agriculture classes and a large portion of our students are Future Farmer’s of America.  Ande is taking Food Sciences this semester.  This Monday’s class was about processing a hog.  The hog was butchered (killed and prepared for processing) at a local butcher shop.  Mr. Von picked it up and the students processed (prepared into the different cuts of meat) it in class.  I witnessed the student’s cutting spare ribs and using a band saw to cut pork chops.   The kids were wearing white lab coats, working in teams and carried all of the meat out to my car.  I received 26 pork chops, 7 pork steaks; couples of roasts and still to come are the hams, picnic ham, several pounds of bacon and bratwurst.

Of course we had a pork roast for dinner Monday night.  It was processed at 2:30 and being eaten at 6. It can not get any fresher then that. I grilled the meat with just a little garlic and onion powder. The pork was so juicy and tender.  I can not imagine buying meat at the grocery store ever again.