Hiromi_X
Ode to the pig
If I were allowed to eat only one animal for the rest of my life, it would be the pig. It has the tastiest fat, the skin is fantastic, and you can get a huge variety of flavor from the same animal. From one pig, you can get rich and hearty cuts and light and delicate cuts. Other meats don't seem as versatile. I could be wrong about the insides of the beast, however; I tend to avoid organ meat, so I have no idea whose intestines or liver or whatever tastes best.
I've had pig on the brain since I saw this episode of "No Reservations" the other night. Anthony Bourdain went to South Carolina, where they do "whole hog" barbecue. The scene where they glopped sauce onto the meat broke my heart, though. Whole hog barbecue minus the sauce is now on my pig wish list. Here's the rest:
1) Spit-roasted pig. I have no idea where to get this.
2) Kalua pig, or whole pig cooked Hawaiian-style in an underground "oven" lined with hot rocks, where it steams for hours and hours. The last time I had this was in the 1980s when my family in Hawaii made one themselves.
3) Roast suckling pig with apple in mouth.
4) I need to go on a dry-cured ham tour of Europe. Hell, I need to go on a food tour of the world, period.
Comments
Ahhh, the glorious pig. When I grew up in Virginia, we often went to North Carolina for their version of a pork barbeque. Churches and fire departments have "pig pickins" to raise money, like bean dinners in New England or ramp dinners in Appalachia.
They roast 'em whole for several days until the meat falls from the bone. You can see people driving around in the summer towing a pit cooker on wheels, smoke flowing from a little chimney on top as they drive to the next big shindig. The sauce is vinegar-based with not a tomato in sight. They serve it up with corn sticks, boiled potatoes, and the only disappointment, buttered white bread.
Delicious.
1. Posted by Omnipotent Poobah on December 19, 2007
I had some amazing dry-rub barbeque pork ribs recently (a la Memphis style). I simply don't understand the whole sauce thing they do in other parts of the country. Works okay for chicken, but pork is SO much better without drowning its flavor in all that goop.
2. Posted by Miss Syl on December 19, 2007
Omni, it took me a while to figure out the phrase "pig pickens." I kept thinking, he misspelled "picnic" in a weird way.
Bean dinners in New England? I wonder if they're anything like Veruca Salt's bean feasts.
Oh, btw, I must totally disagree with you about the white bread. To me, BBQ *demands* that wonderbread kind of white bread. Nothing else will do. No fancy shmancy bread, no grainy breads.
Syl, I've never had Memphis-style BBQ. Methinks that before I head out for a cured ham tour, I should do a domestic BBQ tour.
3. Posted by Hiromi on December 19, 2007
Baby, you left off cochon de lait po-boy. Literally "milk pig", i.e. suckling pig.
I've been to a whole pig roasting thing when I was a kid, up in Slidell back when Slidell was still a shitty little rural town and not a big shitty bedroom community. I wasn't old enough to appreciate what I was getting. The thing I most remember about the event is that the place they had it had "The Streak" on the jukebox (it was in the Top 40 at the time) and we played it a billion times.
That was before Ray Stevens went on the NOLA Sinn Fein/Irish Channel Republican Army's list of "Marked for Death: Legitimate Targets" list for his anti-Katrician crap.
4. Posted by Ray on December 20, 2007
Easiest thing to do (although it's NOT whole pig) is to talk to the butcher, ask for a full leg including skin. That way, you still get the full roast experience, but you don't have the full pig to deal with.
5. Posted by Darkneuro on December 20, 2007
Yucatan-marinated grilled pork loin with chipotle mayo and Caribbean black beans
6. Posted by Marco on December 20, 2007
um...we've had another unfortunate missed reference incident, Ray. I've never heard The Streak. what is it?
And at some point I'm going to have to go over there and try cochon de lait and duck and whatnot po boys. However, any notion of going anywhere outside of a 200 mile radius of Austin has become unlikely ever since I sold my car.
Darkneuro, thass an interesting idea. but aren't pig legs, like, huge? Like, turkey huge?
Marco, how does one Yucatan marinate something? Chipotle mayo sounds awesome.
7. Posted by Hiromi on December 20, 2007
The Streak.
Not to be confused with Le Freak, which came out a few years later.
I was only *just* conscious of the whole streaking phenom/song when it came out; I was just starting grade school. Which means you were probably only just learning how to speak when it came out. :)
And here's more than you ever wanted to know about "The Streak".
8. Posted by Miss Syl on December 21, 2007
Le Freak (c'est chic), I've heard of. But I've never heard of Ray Stevens.
I wouldn't put you and Ray in a different generation than mine, though. But once in a while there are these little disconnects. It's weird.
9. Posted by Hiromi on December 21, 2007
Oops, my Wikipedia link was broken. Sorry. Here is is.
10. Posted by Miss Syl on December 21, 2007
Having grown up in southeastern Virginia just a few miles from Smithfield, home of the Gwaltney company, I can recommend that area. Eastern North Carolina is a good area too for that roasted pig experience. There are back roads that have little cinder-block buildings serving up beer and pig. Sometimes the pig is cooking next to the building in a halved oil drum, the rotating pig dripping fat into the coals below.
I feel like Homer Simpson: "Mmmmmmmm, baaaaccccooooonnnnnnn."
11. Posted by Brian on December 21, 2007
Hiromi,
I will reply soon with a Yucatan marinade and the chipotle mayo thing.
12. Posted by Marco on December 22, 2007
Yucatanish marinade 8 hours
olive oil
equal parts lime and OJ
garlic
minced jalapeno
ground coriander
allspice
cayenne pepper
chipotle mayo
1 cup mayo
1 tbs minced canned chipotles
1 tsp minced garlic (roasted garlic’s best)
1 tbs tomato paste
2 tbs chopped cilantro
2 tbs lime juice
salt & pepper to taste
13. Posted by Marco on December 23, 2007
Personally, I think all life biggest celebrations - weddings, nineteth birthdays, graduations - should be celebrated with a pig roast.
Bottom line, what you need is a local, independent pig farmer. There's two around where I grew up who would bring the big over, dig the pit or whatever, and roast the thing up for you for a flat fee. You could prolly ask folks at farmers' markets or local health food stores (sorry Whole Foods) for a name.
I have a chef friend who's food stories I could listen forever. One of favorites ? They time a customer gave him a freshly killed wild boar for Christmas. Dave said it was so big he could hardly put it in the oven, and that it took all day to cook.
14. Posted by Timory on December 23, 2007
aren't pig legs, like, huge?
Ok, so I meant piglet. Sorry :/ I see them in the grocery here. It's kinda wierd. They eat parts that I didn't know were sold.
15. Posted by Darkneuro on December 24, 2007
I was thinking about this post Saturday, when we went to the butcher for some tasty tidbits. What I thought was, yes, pork is super-special in so many ways, but beef has one big edge on it: My brain sees a fresh cut of raw beef and wants to eat a little bit of it, right there, on the spot. This does not happen with pork, I have *never* been tempted to put raw pork in my mouth. I have never *actually* put raw pork in my mouth.
It'd be so, so hard to pick just one, if I had to pick just one meat for the rest of my life. Probably pork? I guess?
16. Posted by Holly on December 24, 2007
Brian, one of my best pig experiences involved a Virginia ham, with bone. I'm not sure what ham purveyor it came from, though.
Marco, thanks. Next time I have access to a grill, I'm going to try it.
Timory, speaking of wild boar, one of my best pig experiences involved a wild boar hot pot in Japan -- called "botan nabe." Very thin slices of raw boar meat were arranged like the petals of a peony("botan" means "peony" in Japanese). That was one of the richest things I've ever eaten.
Darkneuro, I can probably find something like that in an ethnic grocery store. Might try it.
Holley, I've had raw beef. Oh yeah, and raw horse. While it was good, they aren't in my top food experiences, so I'm cool with missing out on raw meat, if I had to stick with only pork.
17. Posted by Hiromi on December 24, 2007
Hiromi, grilling is the best way. You can also pan sear until brown and pop it in the oven.
18. Posted by Marco on December 25, 2007