First pig of the year was from Nature’s Green Acres. Second from Peck N Berry Acres. This third round was from Irvings Farm Fresh – this time 2 pigs. This is decidedly my last pig butchering of the year because quite frankly, I’m tired of butchering pigs. Thankfully, it went extremely quickly – nearly twice as quickly as expected thanks to Allan‘s help. For those wondering why on earth we eat so many pigs, only one of these was our ‘annual pig’. The other, a friend’s. Last pig cutting was somebody else’s pig. And the first, we took about a side – last year’s lack of calf moose resulting in increased pork consumption. I’m thinking one pig a year should do us.
I am in the process of editing the footage from my visit to Irvings Farm Fresh, and was really glad to get the opportunity to visit the farm, ’cause man are they busy. I got to meet the pigs that we butchered too, which is an interesting consumer experience. To add to the fun, the pigs we got were Cinder and Ella – the resident pigs from Fort Edmonton Park, believe it or not. So those little piggies my girls [and many other folks] played with during the summer at the park will be feeding our family through the winter. No, we have not told our toddler girls just yet.
Below – part of our November ‘al fresco’ butchering day lunch I won’t soon forget.
9 Comments on “Pig Butchering, Round 3”
Slobber.
what are the little strips in the bottom photo? strips of skin or fat or something?
looks very good.
Greg – me too.
Jeff – crackling – the skin from the chop cut off and thrown back onto the grill to crisp up.
Oh man Crackling……. little slice of absolute heaven. I’ve seen folks sprinkle brown sugar on the crackling while its crisping up on the grill… Smokey, sweet, bliss…
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Kevin… I think this is the day Allan was with you… and he mentioned that it was a “delicious” lunch, too… I wonder if I could eat the animal in the middle of the butchering. It would depend upon the smell. As a child, when we butchered the chickens, I could smell that smell in all of the cooked chickens for ever after ward, and didn’t eat any for years…
I have “grown up”, but have not butchered my own animals, so I wonder.
valerie
Valerie – to me, handling a half hog is not much different than handling a pork roast – it’s just a bigger cut. But I agree with you regarding a fresh kill. All animals I’ve ever killed have distinctive smells that stick around for a while – I find until the animal’s chilled off for a day or two or frozen. But I can assure you, a pig butchering episode smells of little but pork chop.
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