A Word About Why... The Reason For The Madness!

Somewhere along this process, someone asked me, "Why?"  Why not just get pork from the store?  Why would I not just let the processor do it and just pick up all the stuff?  Why was I compelled to put all this work into this whole thing?  And why in the world would I want to make headcheese or use the trotters to make bone stock?  Isn't this whole thing kind of gross?

These were good questions and I realized that the answer wasn't really all that simple.  Some of this might have been touched on in previous posts but perhaps I can better articulate here in a more deliberate manner.

Stewardship

Used without permission from DavisCoFoods.com

I'm a Christian.  I believe that God gave man domain over the plants and animals.  And I believe that human life is more important than animal life or plant life and that at no time should we forget that.  But I also believe that if we are always mindful that these are gifts from God, not to be taken for granted, that we will do a good job of being proper stewards of the earth and its flora and fauna.  

To that end, I think we've become so far removed from our food supply, that we don't really see how we've failed at stewardship of God's blessing.  Our meat comes from animals that are raised in horrible conditions.  Our crops are sprayed with tons of stuff you would otherwise not put into your body.  If Smithfield's slaughterhouse/meat packing facilities had glass walls allowing people to see inside, we'd be a nation of vegans.  Frankly, there was a time when I even considered that route for myself.  And if every package of frozen veggies was required to list the chemicals that it was doused in, well... I don't know what America would eat then.  

So to me, part of this endeavor was to be closer to my food supply.  Some people talk about how they want food with a story... I get that.  I think I'm more interested in knowing that my food was raised in a way that's in keeping with good stewardship of God's blessing.  I don't really have a compulsion to know where my food comes from outright, but I DO care HOW it was raised or grown.  And to that end, the only way I can be sure that it is being done to my standards is to get closer to the producers.  This has tons of other benefits as well (such as our food having a "story" - which while not being my primary goal, is still pretty cool!) such as getting to know my farmers.  I really do think it fulfills them to see the happy faces of the people they feed.  I know it gives me a certain sense of peace.

This whole idea somehwat piggy-backs (HA!) into the next idea...

Quality

Used without permission from Full Circle Bison Ranch

Why not just get my pork from the grocery store?  Well, the previous section somewhat addresses that.  But I also think that when a farmer knows his customer he's more motivated to take care of the product he sells.  If you were making widgets in a factory in China and you messed up on one that might affect its quality or performance but you knew that it would pass QC and not come back to bite you, you might be inclined to let it go... buyer beware!  BUT, if you were directly selling that widget to the person who was going to be using it and knew that they might show back up next week with the busted item and look you in the eye, wanting to know why, you are more likely to do a better job. You become your own quality control at that point.  

Certainly there are lousy people out there - and farming doesn't have a monopoly on good people.  But the things that keeps lousy people honest is accountability.  And a pig farmer who is raising a bazillion hogs in confinement knows that his pork is going to be ground up with another farmer's bazillion hogs and made into highly processed sausage or SPAM.  He is more likely to let that one hog that just isn't right, head off to the slaughterhouse.  Not to say he's willfully putting people at risk (that's not just a lousy person, that's a psychopath!), but if he knows the meat will pass inspection, what does he care if its not the best meat he can raise?  He isn't out to provide the best... just to meet the standard of his buyer or the USDA inspector.

But, your local farmer, who you deal with personally, knows that his reputation is on the line when he sells you his hog.  He knows you can choose to go somewhere else next time.  He knows that you'll talk to your friends as well and they will go somewhere else.  When you buy pork from most grocers, you are buying from one of the large four or five meat suppliers.  Didn't like that Jimmy Dean sausage?  Want to buy Bob Evans sausage next time?  Odds have it, they came from the same industrial meat conglomerate (I'm just pulling two names out of my head there and have nothing to back that up - but you get my point) - so what does Smithfield care?

Furthermore, for those of us who are *ahem* perhaps a little bit budget conscious, provided that you can even find a local butcher who sells locally sourced and properly raised pork, odds have it, it won't meet with your price needs.  I live in a metro area where there are a few places that specialize in this kind of product... but they are serving customers who have a great deal more money to spend than I do.  Nothing against them... if anything, I'm glad they are making the stuff available.  Its just out of my price range.  So I HAVE to deal directly with a farmer - otherwise I couldn't afford it.

Control

                                                  

Had I let a processor do the butchering and processing, I would have gotten bacon the only way they make it (not good or bad, just "their" way).  The same for the ham.  They wouldn't give me the sausage options I want... my choices would have been mild or hot... and it would have come in a plastic tube like Jimmy Dean sausage with a little metal ring to close it up like what you see in the grocery store.  Doesn't make it bad per se - their breakfast sausage might be very good.  But I want to make my own.

Additionally, I don't really want to assume that all the trimmings and fat that they might wrap up for me for my own sausage recipe are from the hog that I bought.  For that matter, I guess its possible that the hog that I am delivered might not be the same hog that my farmer dropped off for me at the processor but that starts to get into outright fraud on behalf of the abattoir - and that is much different than one of the guys in the trim room just tossing a bunch of scraps from a couple different hogs into a bag.

The proccessor might not be terribly inclined to trim the spare ribs exactly the way I want them.  His idea of a Boston Butt roast might be a little different than mine.  His ham might have the aitch bone intact whereas I want mine removed.

I think you can see where I am heading here.  Besides, like a friend of mine from church said, if you do it yourself, you know how many times your meat hit the floor!

How Do I Order This Thing?

So through a contact provided me from a Facebook group called "Sausage Debauchery", I got hold a gentlemen named Josh Davis from Frolona Farm.  Josh raises pastured heritage breed hogs and grass fed cattle on a farm in Franklin, Georgia - east and a little south of Atlanta.  His family has owned the farm for a long time (1840s if I remember right?) and darned if it isn't prettiest plot of land I've seen in this state.

I'll admit to being most of the way sold on Josh's operation after seeing this video that was linked to from the farm's Facebook page.  That said, once I got into contact with him, he was very up front with what he did, why he did it and was very patient with my questions and inquiries.  At no point did I get the impression that he was being evasive (like I gotten elsewhere).  He told me why he bred the breeds he bred and what the goal of his breeding program was in the short-term and the long-term.  He was very accommodating of me and my family when we paid a visit to the farm.  His prices were right about in the middle of what I'd seen and met with my budget for the project.

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but there is something special about being able to shake the hand on the person who raised your food.  I've spent my whole life removed from my food, just buying whatever was on the shelf at Kroger or Publix.  I think as a consumer, there is something fulfilling to looking into the eyes of the person you are purchasing something from.  We've lost that in today's society.  I'm as loyal an Amazon customer as the next person and its been a long time since I could look at the face of the person who is selling me this DVD or that coffee maker.  But even before online sales, did we really have a connection to the store clerk at Best Buy who told us which TV to buy?  I didn't.  It was still pretty sterile and anonymous.  Frankly though, I don't think I "need" the same kind of connection with the salesperson at Haverty's when buying that new sofa; he didn't build the sofa.  And true, my dollars go towards his salary, but it takes many steps to get there.  When I pay Josh directly for a hog that he raised, the money stays between us.  And I think the farmer gets something out of that interaction too... sure, its his livelihood - but there's more there.  He's met my two kids.  My son played with his dog.  There is a direct link between the hog that he is raising and the family it will feed.  That "link" is a form of accountability...  Unless he's a psychopath and gets off on feeding people diseased meat, he's going to try to raise the best product he can.  That "link" ensures that.  And I think that "link" is missing with today's food supply.   I can't be the only person who believes that.  And I really do think that there is a whole higher level of job fulfillment for a farmer who gets to see the smiling faces who enjoy the fruits of his labor.  But, I digress (you'll find I do that a lot!).

Okay - back to the project.

When you buy your meat from a local provider, you are going to come in contact with terms such as hanging weight, processors, cut sheets, and probably a whole bunch of others that I've forgotten.

The processor is the facility that will slaughter the animal (also known as an abattoir.)  For normal folks who want their meat to be pre-cut and packaged, the processor is also likely to be the butcher too.  But for nutjobs like myself, who just want to carcass on the kitchen counter to butcher on our own, the processor is just the processor.  And they'll kill and eviscerate the hog, scald and scrape the hair off, remove the head, cut the carcass in half and hang it to chill.  After that, its on me.

Hanging weight refers to the weight of the carcass after evisceration (and usually without the head) as it hangs.  Most prices are going to be given based on hanging weight.  In my case, Josh's prices (in January of 2015) are $3.50 per lb. and most his hogs were weighing about 200-250lbs hanging.

Based on our conversations, I expected the my half (I was ordering a half hog - due to budget, freezer space, and first time jitters, I only wanted to try to manage a half) to weigh between 100-120lbs hanging weight.  So for the sake of my small math brain, 100lbs hanging weight would cost me $350 total.  Josh had figured his abattoir fees into that.  Some farmers had quoted me prices that were just for the hanging weight and then a price on top of that for processing (kill fee, butcher fee...).  Had I gone with them, I would have expected to pay less in processor fees since I was doing the butchering.

We agreed on the terms of the sale and then it was just a matter of waiting until the hogs were ready and we could match up schedules.  I requested a hog on a specific date.  Sadly, he was unable to "confirm" that date two weeks in advance.  Reason being that my order was the only order for a hog that he had for delivery that day.  Certainly there are transportation costs and such that figure into that but the primary reason is that he believes that transporting an animal alone to a strange place puts undue stress on the animal and he won't do it.  I can totally respect that.  And while I'd never thought about it, I actually prefer that approach... why go through the process of raising a top quality hog only to have the quality degraded by butchering a stressed animal?  I don't think for a moment that a pig has an awareness of impending slaughter - but I do think its capable of thinking, "Hey. what is that loud machine he wants to put me in?  Hey, what is this strange place?  Hey, where'd all my buddies go?  Hey, I don't like being alone!"

So... it was a matter of waiting until our schedules would sync up - but in the meantime, I needed to get ready...  But wait, wasn't this going to be easy?

A Hog is a Hog? Sourcing the Pork

Thanks to a loose lipped hog farmer who planted the idea of butchering it myself into my head as well as my overactive miser-glad, I'd decided that this was going to be my next project.  I was going to get a hog, butcher it myself, and do all the processing on my own (sausage, ham, lard, bacon, etc...).  Sounds easy right?

Obviously, the first thing I'd need was a source for the hog.  I wanted a heritage breed, raised locally on pasture.  The problem is that you can't just go to the store and ask for one.  The only place I'd encountered one was at the previously mentioned Farm to Table event put on by the good folks who do our CSA - and sadly Mike and Judy didn't have any that would be ready for my timeline (which was as soon as possible - that stuff was too good to wait for!).  I asked them if they could point me in the direction of another source and they were happy to do so.  That's a neat thing about your local farmer... these folks that are trying to keep things local.  Mike was more interested that I find someone who was active in the local food community and trying to raise their animals in a respectable way, than he was concerned about losing a sale to a "competitor".

Sadly, as with anything dealing with people, there are good ones and bad ones.  After numerous text messages, phone calls, voicemails, emails, websites that didn't work, I'd learned a few things; 

- a good hog farmer isn't necessarily a good business manager

- just because a hog farmer is local doesn't mean he's part of the "local food" movement

- one farmer's interpretation of pasture isn't always in line with what I thought it meant

- not all farmers believe that hogs should be raised on pasture and that this whole idea is bunk

- some farmers will tell you what you want to hear, even when it ain't true

- when you find someone on the up and up, give them your business so they'll be around next time

One farmer told me that his hogs were on pasture.  When I asked him what type of forage made up most of their diet, he said Brand X feed.  Turns out they were "confined" on pasture (meaning NOT on a hog-barn) and fed the same feed that we were trying to steer clear of.

 Used without permission from Mountain Creek Farm

One farmer told me that you can't raise hogs on pasture.  Another said that heritage breeds "ain't good for meat, just for fat".

Another said that he raised purebred Mulefoot hogs on pasture with minimal amounts of supplemental non-GMO organic feed.  His prices were lower than any I'd seen and he could deliver however much I wanted, whenever I wanted it, wherever I wanted it.  Sounded perfect - I asked him where he was located and he replied not too far from me and that he'd be happy to deliver for free if I ordered a certain amount or more.  When I mentioned that I might like to drop by and see his operation, having never seen a pastured hog farm before, the emails stopped.  No replies to my text messages either.  When I finally did get an answer, it was a terse one-liner that said, "Sorry, we don't have any more available."  Wow!  He sold out fast.  My guess is that his hogs were anything but what he claimed they were.

So after all that, here's my checklist - your potential supplier should meet most of this criteria:

- you should expect the farmer to be able to tell you what breeds they raise (not insist that what you are looking for is a bad idea)

- you should expect the farmer to be able to tell you what they feed their hogs and what their pasture is made up of

- you should expect them to tell you if they use hormones or anti-biotics in their herd at all and if they do, for what reasons

- you should be able to visit their farm (there ARE legitimate concerns with contamination and the spread of disease to a otherwise healthy herd and in those cases, you should be able to get some sort of third party confirmation on their claims).

So where do you start looking?  Word of mouth helps.  Get connected with like-minded folks.  Check out your local farmer's market if you have one.  Ask around.  Check with your local butcher shop (if you have one... most people are stuck with their grocer's meat department and those guys likely won't even know what you are looking for - no disrespect to them at all - just outside their scope).  Check with the breeder list at the Livestock Conservancy.

I contacted a couple of the better regarded local meat processors and abattoirs in the state and asked them who was raising the best meat.  Be careful here though as what you consider best may not be what the local 4H judges consider best.  Might be great meat by commercial standards but that's not what I was looking for.

Check with your Facebook contacts - there are several closed groups on Facebook that have been very helpful in my quest - in fact, the farmer I ended up using was referred to me by someone on the "Sausage Debauchery" Facebook group.  Check out Craigslist... 

Point being is that you'll know the right farmer when you find them - just trust your gut.  For what it was worth, the guy that Mike referred me to was willing but we couldn't make the logistics work.

To Butcher A Pig

I have no idea why or where I got the idea to butcher a pig.  I probably started with my wallet, as most things do.  I tend to be somewhat cheap ("tight" as my wife would say) and I'm forever looking to save a buck or two with the idea that the less I can pay for something, the more I get to buy of it.  And when ideas don't originate with my wallet, they almost always can be traced back to my stomach.

Last fall we attended a Farm to Table event put on by Country Gardens Farm near Newnan, Georgia.  We had joined Mike and Judy Cunningham's Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program the previous spring, which provided us with all sorts of fresh seasonal veggies grown naturally (don't get me started on a USDA Organic rant...) as well as raw milk from their dairy and eggs from their flock of hens.  At the Farm to Table meal, Mike served a pork roast that had come from their hogs.  I was floored at the difference in quality as compared to the pork I'd had in stores.  They raise their pigs on pasture, which means that the animals have to work more for their food by foraging and grazing.  Finding grasses, greens, nuts, roots, and whatever else they can scrounge up from their environment runs totally counter to the way that most pork is raised for your grocer's meat case.

Confinement hog operation - used without permission from Bamesberger Farms

Most commercially raised hogs are raised in confinement; in such tight quarters that the farmers remove their tails when they are piglets so that they don't get bored and chew each others tails off all together; and fed mostly commercial feed which contains lots of the stuff my family is trying to avoid (chemical fertilizers, GMO enabled pesticides, etc...).  Furthermore, as America has waged war on fat for the last four decades or so, commercially raised hogs have been selectively bred to be leaner and contain less fat (after all, they even consider it "the other white meat").  And for those who aren't wise to this yet, FAT = FLAVOR!

Mike and Judy raise heritage breed hogs (Tamworth), which are much more happy on pasture than say the pigs you'd see at a conventional hog farm.  Heritage breeds (the American Livestock Conservancy lists 10 heritage breeds of pig) have not had that ability to thrive on forage bred out of them yet.

I have to believe that is what accounted for the difference in taste.  Similar to grass-fed beef, pastured pork has a richer and more robust flavor and the fat is so palatable that I found myself eating it rather than cutting around it and scooting it to the edge of my plate.  Imagine this comparison;  a lean chicken breast tastes like chicken and a chicken thigh tastes even more like chicken.  Grass-fed beef tastes like "beefier" beef.  Pastured pork tastes even more like pork.  I don't know how else to describe it... you just need to get your hands on some!

So all that being said, my appetite was now whetted for better pork than I'd been cooking.  I was salivating at the thought of how much better a slow cooked Boston Butt would taste when it came from one of Mike's hogs instead of from the grocery store.  But... Mike didn't have any available and wouldn't for quite some time.  I had to go elsewhere.

One of the farmers I contacted asked me if I wanted the hog butchered or not.  There was a price difference... it was cheaper to get it un-butchered (a point of clarification here - 'slaughtering' is the process by which animal is killed, skinned, and cleaned - 'butchering' is the process by which an animal is prepared for use by breaking it down from a carcass into something you and I would consider retail cuts).  See my above comment about my wallet being a powerful motivator...

I'd seen Chris Kimble on America's Test Kitchen episodes on PBS stand in front of a model of a pig and point to the loin or the shoulder sections.  People used to butcher hogs on farms, right?  How hard could it be?

And so the quest began...