SC - piggie raison d'etre

[Michael F. Gunter]

hi from Anne-Marie...
re: raising pigs...
when I was a girl, we fed our pigs (usually named something like "Pork
Chop" or "Jambone") on the gallons of excess milk we got from our goats.
Left to clabber a bit and then dumped in the trough. They also got garden
trimmings, and whatever free range baby chickens they could catch (everyone
knows pigs arent exactly the nicest of animals, right?). We usually raised
two and sold one (milk fed pork! yum!) for a tidy profit.

we tended to stay away from the food leftovers cuz that attracted the
biggest dang rats you've ever seen, and the pig pen was right next to the
milk house, and I'd be there before dawn milking and my mean twerp of a
brother would shut the lights off and you could hear the rats coming out to
eat the fallen grain...eeeeeeeeeeek! he thought it was pretty funny. Little
#$%.

but I digress.

the taste of pork (or beef or mutton or chicken) is most definately tied
closely to what the critter eats. Free range chickens taste so much more
flavorful in large part due to the bugs and other stuff they eat. Ditto
beef, though they dont eat so many bugs :). 

When I'm attempting to re-produce the flavor of "medievally raised" meats,
I will often get the organic free range "cows with names" meat and milk.
The chickens arent nearly as fatty (most likely due to the fact that they
have to actually walk and chase their food, as oppsed to just having it
come down a chute to them), the beef and lamb is much more flavorful.

Modern meat animals have been bred specifically for bigger hams (hence that
unfortunate rear view of your modern pig), bigger breasts (modner meat
chickens are almost incapable of walking they're so breast heavy), etc. as
well as more recently, less fat. But the flavor is as it always has been
dictated by the diet, IMHO. 

Barring the eco-groovy organic chickens with country clubs :) contact your
local Cooperative Extension Agent (in the phone book). You can often
purchase whole animals at the local fair. The animals have been almost
always raised free range, with lots of exercise ("lets take the pig to get
the mail!"), and with a minimum of hormones, etc. Call a butcher and ask
what a good price would be per pound. they may even be able to get you one,
or part of one. Part of the deal is that it gets "dispatched" and cut <server
didn't like other word>
into appropriate gobbets. You'll get a pile of tidy white paper wrapped
packages.

hope this helps,
- --AM


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