[Sca-cooks] Whole Hog (long

[Christine Seelye-King]

Here is the information I just printed out for my lord, who will be doing
this same thing at Pennsic.  Good Luck!
Mistress Christianna

Here is a recipe from about 1660, from The Complete Cook by
Rebecca price for roasted pig from Williamsburg VA .

To Roast A Pig: A Very Good Why
	After your pigg is scalded drye the inside with a cloth, then spitt it and
put into the Belly thereof a handful of sage, a piece of butter, and a
crust of bread, then sew it up and lay it to the fire, and flower it very
thicke all over, and as it drops off flower it again, and so roast it with
a quick fire till it be almost enough and the coat thereof crisp, then with
a drye cloath wuipe all the flower clean off, and when it is brown and
crisp send it to the table with sawce made of the gravie that runs from it
in the roasting, butter being melted therein with some chopped sage, and
the brains of the pig.

Taillevent recommends roast pork be eaten with verjuice, and says some
people put garlic, onions, wine, and verjuice in the pan with the
drippings from the meat and make a sauce with that. Kind of like sauce
Robert without the mustard.

He says of stuffed roast suckling pig that while some lazy persons eat
it with Cameline Sauce, it should be served with a hot Yellow Pepper
Sauce. Of that, Poivre Jaunet, he says to grind ginger, long pepper,
saffron -- and some people add in cloves with a little verjuice -- and
toast; infuse this in vinegar (or verjuice) and boil it when you are
about to serve your meat.

Something Taillevent doesn't recommend for roast pork, but which happens
to be excellent with it, is Garlic Jance, made from ginger, garlic and
almonds, ground, infused in verjuice and boiled until thickened. He says
some people put white wine in it too. It's a little like a modern Greek
Skordalia...

Adamantius

Modern Technique from an on-line source, probably someone from the "Memphis
in May" Cookoff -
> Basic "How-To" for Hosting a HOG ROAST:
Order your pig from a specialty meat packer, grocery store or local locker;
often 7 days advance notice is necessary. You will also need a
specially-made "hog cooker," a grill made to accommodate the large size of
the butterflied hog.

Makes about 30-40 pounds of chopped pork, enough to serve 50-70 people:
· 1 75-100-pound dressed pig
· .5 pound salt
· 60 pounds charcoal briquets
· Barbecue sauce

Split backbone to allow pig to lay flat, being careful not to pierce skin.
Trim and discard any excess fat. Sprinkle salt inside cavity. Set pig aside.

Place 20 pounds of the charcoal in large grill; pour 1 quart charcoal
lighter  fluid over top and ignite. Let burn until charcoal has turned
ash-grey. Place  heavy gauge wire, about the size of the pig, over grill, 13
inches from coals.

Place pig flat, skin side up, on wire surface. Close lid of cooker; cook at
225 degrees F. for 6 hours, adding additional lighted coals as needed to
maintain temperature in cooker.

Place a second piece of wire over pig, sandwiching pig between the two
layers of wire. Turn pig over; remove wire from top. Insert meat thermometer
in thigh, do not touch bone.

Baste meat with barbecue sauce; pour sauce in rib cavity to measure one
inch.
Close pork cooker lid; cook at 225 degrees F. for two more hours or until
meat thermometer registers 160 degrees F. and no pink meat is visible when
hams and shoulder are cut.

Slice and chop meat; serve with barbecue sauce, sandwich buns, cole slaw,
and your other favorite side dishes.
Tips:
· Allow about 1 .5 pounds carcass weight per person.
· Do not exceed 225 degrees F. cooking temperature during the first two
hours of cooking; the idea is to slowly cook the pig.
· Temperature control is more difficult in an open grill; allow for 1 hour
of cooking time per 10 pounds of pig.
· Additional coals started in a small grill outside of the cooker should be
added as needed to maintain proper temperature.
· Distribute more coals under the shoulders and hams and less in the center
for more uniform cooking.
· Allow two quarts of barbecue sauce per 75 pounds of pork.


Equipment For Making the Job Easier:
· Specially-made hog cooker
· Extra small grill or "burn barrel" for starting coals
· Squirt container of water for possible heat source flare-ups
· Knife, cleaver, chopping block for chopping roasted hog (a new, clean
garden hoe does this job well)
· Thick rubber gloves for handling the hog
· Two pieces of wire approximately 3 .5-feet x 4-feet to be used for
turning, sturdy enough to support carcass weight

Cuts of pork

· Remove the hind foot with a cut through the tuber calcis. Remove the front
foot with a cut that is just distal to the ulna and radius.
· Remove the leg with a cut that starts between sacral vertebrae 2 and 3 and
which is then directed towards the tensor fascia lata.
· The cutting line is then changed so that most of the tensor fascia lata is
incorporated into the leg.
· The butt and picnic are removed together as a shoulder, by a cut that is
that is perpendicular to the vertebral column and which starts between
thoracic vertebrae 2 and 3. The butt is separated from the picnic by a cut
that skims past the ventral region of the cervical vertebrae at a tangent.
This keeps the top of the picnic relatively square.
· The jowl is removed from the picnic with a cut that follows the crease
lines in the skin.
· The remainder of the side of pork is split into the loin and belly by a
curved cut that follows the curvature of the vertebral column. One end of
the curve is just ventral to the ilium, the other end is just ventral to the
blade of the scapula.
· The loin may be divided into a continuous sequence of chops. From anterior
to posterior these are the
· rib chops,
· center loin chops and
· tenderloin chops.
They can all be cooked satisfactorily by dry heat. Alternatively, the
thoracic, lumbar and iliac regions may be left intact as large roasts,

· the rib end roast,
· center loin roast and
· tenderloin end roast.
· The psoas muscles may be removed from the lumbar region to make
tenderloin, and the longissimus dorsi and adjacent small muscles may be
removed from the vertebral column, and rolled and tied to make boned and
rolled loin roast.
· A crown roast can be made by twisting the thoracic vertebral column into a
circle so that the stumps of the ribs radiate outwards like the points of a
crown. This facilitates the rapid carving and distribution of portions at a
banquet.
· The longissimus dorsi may be cured and smoked to make Canadian Style bacon
or (as it is more often called within Canada) peameal bacon and back bacon.
· The rib cage plus its immediately adjacent muscles are removed from the
belly to make the spare ribs.
· The remaining muscles of the abdomen, together with those that overlap the
ribcage for their insertion, constitute the side of pork. Side of pork may
be cured and smoked to make slab bacon.
· The picnic may be sliced to make picnic shoulder chops through the
humerus, or it can be partly subdivided to make picnic shoulder roasts.
Picnic shoulder roasts may be boned and rolled, or smoked and cured in a
variety of ways.
· The butt, or Boston butt, is usually divided into a number of blade steaks
that are cut from dorsal to ventral through the scapula. The more anterior
part then forms a butt roast.
· The leg may be subdivided to create, from proximal to distal, the butt end
roast and the shank end roast. Alternatively, the leg may be cured and
smoked to make ham.

· The feet, the hocks, the knuckles and the tail can be baked or cooked in
liquid and consumed enthusiastically with a large quantity of draft beer