Pigs

We got the first of our all-natural, non-GMO, soy-free pastured pork back from the butcher the other day.  It is delicious.  We have already eaten a lot of sausage and pork chops.  We fully expected to like these cuts.

However, we were a little concerned about the bacon as it would, of course, be fresh, i.e., uncured.  We talked with the folks at the butcher and people have processed lots of their own hogs, and everyone said “it won’t be like bacon you get from the store” with a tone that sounded as if it were meant to give me a warning.  This sounded ominous, and we took it to mean “it won’t be as delicious as what you get from the store.”

That made me sad.  Bacon is one of those things that we really don’t get enough of around here.  There are ten of us, and we all love bacon.  Three pounds of bacon doesn’t really get us started, so, if we ever decided to just have bacon sandwiches for a meal or even a snack, we would need to take out a small loan to do it.  So, I was disappointed a bit to think that my bacon would not be as good as store-boughten bacon.  After all, a big part of raising our own pigs was to have delicious meat for us to eat and sell to folks in Bedford, Lynchburg, Roanoke, and the surrounding area.

All of that said, you might be wondering about the picture above.  That picture is of a slab of pork sidemeat, also known as pork belly (not to be confused with pork stomach) or midlin meat.  Or, as it is more commonly known in its most famously delicious form–bacon.  Bacon is simply cured pork sidemeat, belly, or midlin meat.  My parents and grandparents always called it midlin meat.  So, I often call it that as well.  Big Pig weighed about 280 and produced two slabs this size of midlin meat.

Wanting to get the most out of it, I got it fresh and tried curing some at home with a salt cure.  I then had some scrap pieces that I had cut off before I did the curing, so I decided to just fry it in a cast-iron skillet and try it.  And . . . wow, they were right, it is not like store-boughten bacon!  Instead, it is even better!  It was astoundingly, unbelievably, wonderfully better than store-boughten bacon.

Then, we tried some of the bacon that I cured, and we came to the same conclusion.  It was the best bacon that I have ever had in my life.  I ate two big sandwiches of it.  But, honestly, I thought it was just as good not cured but just seasoned with a little salt, pepper, and other seasonings right in the skillet and cooked over medium heat until desired crispiness.  Honestly, it was unbelievable how good it was.

We also tried some of the pieces I had trimmed off in some green beans to flavor them and wow, they were delicious as well.  (My wife put green beans, cut up potatoes, some trimmings from the midlin meat, and a few other seasonings in one of our big cast-iron dutch ovens.  I wasn’t even hungry because I had eaten way too much bacon already, but they were so delicious with that midlin meat in there that I ended up eating a huge heaping plate full!)

So, now that I know what people mean when they say that midlin meat, or side meat, or uncured bacon is just not like bacon you get from the store, I am having the butcher slice the midlin meat and vacuum seal it in about one pound packages so we can have it whenever we like.  Just thaw it out, throw it in the skillet or in whatever dish we want some delicious flavoring in along with a little bit of seasoning, and enjoy!  And, we should be getting our first pig processed under inspection back very soon, which means we might well have non-GMO, all-natural, soy-free, outrageously delicious pork to sell this weekend!

P.S.  If you were looking for a great recipe for cooking uncured midlin meat, unfortunately, this is about the best I can do.  This is about the best I can do in telling you how to cook uncured pork belly or bacon because: (1) I don’t cook anything except meat in our house (my wife is too good of a cook for me to mess around in the kitchen much) and (2) I just eyeball how much seasoning to add to meat when I cook it.  I don’t follow recipes, and therefore I can’t really give you one.  So, the recipe is add some fresh midlin meat slices, salt, pepper, and some other spices to a greased cast-iron skillet and cook it until you think it looks about done.  That is all it takes to prepare the most delicious “bacon” ever!

This is one of our pastured pigs.  He is a Hampshire with just a wee little bit of Yorkshire in him.  We had just had a thunderstorm the night before, and he is looking around in the pasture for something yummy to eat and anticipating the all-natural, non-GMO, soy-free, whole-grain concoction that I am about to bring him.

We have been blessed to sell chickens to folks from all over Central Virginia including Bedford, Lynchburg, Roanoke, Charlottesville, Rocky Mount, Blacksburg, and many other localities.  We have even had one customer drive from Morganstown, West Virginia!  We are looking forwarding to selling our all-natural, non-GMO, soy-free pastured pork to folks in these areas as well.  We just got the first of our pork back from the butcher just the other day, and it is delicious.  Here is a picture of some of the sausage:

You can see the huge “NOT FOR SALE” label plastered on it.  That is because we are planning to eat this meat and give it away, etc., and therefore we did not pay extra to have one of the servants of our “benevolent” government overlords oversee the slaughtering process.  So, this meat is not safe.  But don’t worry, the pork we plan to sell will be killed under inspection and therefore will be safe.  I am so reckless that I am going to feed this unsafe (because it is uninspected) meat to my wife, my eight kids, and my friends and family.

(In case you didn’t catch it, the last several sentences were very wry and dripping with sarcasm.  There is very little about the modern food tyranny that is run by the government and supported by big agriculture that has anything in the world to do with real concern over food safety.  It has much more to do with keeping smaller farmers like me from competing with the big boys.  After all, if it were really about food safety, then why would I be allowed to give this meat away, feed it to my kids or a passing troop of preschoolers, or cook it up for a bunch of kids at Vacation Bible School? (All of which is perfectly legal, but, if this pork really is dangerous because it has not been inspected, it should be just as much of a food safety concern as my selling it.)  Regardless of how you feel about non-GMO and locally-sourced, etc., every American should be for real liberty, which includes the freedom to buy and sell without the government being a party to every single contract, and every American should oppose the type of crony capitalism that has made most farmers into little more than serfs working for big agriculture.  All right, enough ranting.  I will get back to the post now.  But, before I do, and before you think my rant is all that bad, imagine what that guy from Central Virginia who made that speech about “give me liberty or give me death” might say if he found out the government wouldn’t let him sell his pork without having it inspected!)

Now for something more peaceful.  Here are some more of our hogs enjoying the pasture:

In addition to four more of our Hampshires, this picture shows you some of our Duroc / Yorkshire crosses.  (It would show it better if they weren’t rooting up around my feet wanting me to give them something yummy to eat.  It is hard to get pigs to pose for a picture!)  For those of you who remember, these are some of those same five little pigs that started the porcine portion of our farm adventure way back in January.  Just click here and scroll down to see how they have changed!  Our pig herd consists of the following breeds to varying degrees: Hampshires, Yorkshires, Durocs, and Tamworths.

As you can see, pastured pigs are happy pigs.  They spend their days roaming around the pasture, grazing and rooting about for food, and lounging in the shade or playing in the creek.  They grow fat at it too.  They are extremely healthy, and we don’t have to use antibiotics, etc. on them.  And, you might not believe it, but they don’t stink either.  With the room they have to roam, and the feed we feed them, they just don’t smell bad.

In addition to being happy pigs, pastured pigs make great tasting meat, which we will have for sale very soon!

This is a picture of what we feed the pigs, or at least what we start with.  It is a mix of four all-natural, non-GMO, locally-sourced, soy-free whole grains.  We use whole corn, whole oats, whole field peas, and whole soft white wheat.

Of course, the pigs are also pastured, so they are free to eat whatever they find in the fields, which includes various grasses, plants, shrubs, roots, grubs, cow manure, etc., etc., etc.  Pigs are omnivores, and, given the chance, they will have a very, very varied diet.  (For example, you will notice that the list includes cow manure.  Sounds gross, right?  First, I don’t make them eat it.  I couldn’t stop them from it if I wanted to do so.  Second, a good friend of mine who raises pigs all naturally and has put a great deal of study into the matter recently told me that they actually get just about all the nutrients they need from it.  So, whatever you feed them above and beyond that is just bonus!  Third, it is part of how they earn their keep.  They are spreading the cow manure so I don’t have to.)

Now, if you know a bit about the digestion of whole grains, you are probably thinking that my pigs can’t prosper on this stuff because they won’t be able to digest it.  And, you would be right.  If I were to feed it to the pigs just as you see it above, they won’t be able to digest it.  It would pass right through because pigs and hogs have only one stomach and can’t break down the grains in their whole form as shown above, at least not very efficiently.  (Actually, animals with multiple stomachs only do a little better at this.  If you just feed whole corn to your cows, you will find a lot of it in their manure in a virtually unaltered state.)

So, I put about 13 pounds of the above mixture in a five-gallon bucket and fill it to about two inches from the top with water.  Here is what it looks like at stage two:

Some of the oats and the wheat berries will float to the top, as you can see.  The corn and field peas tend to remain completely submerged at this point.  I then cover the buckets of my grain and water mixture and let them set anywhere from 24-48 hours.

The above is about one day’s feeding for my current herd of hogs.  (We have fifteen right now.)  I feed them two buckets in the morning and four buckets in the evening.  I feed them more in the evening and less in the morning because I want them to be active in the pasture during the day foraging about for food.

Once the 24-48 hour period has passed, I take the lid off and feed the concoction to the pigs.  Here is what it looks like after “curing.”

You can’t tell it from the picture, but it is bubbling on its own.  Some of the grains start to sprout and/or ferment.  All of them are broken down so that they are more digestible and their nutrients are more available to the pigs.  It actually smells sweet, and the pigs love it.  They drink the liquid off of it just as fast as they can, and then they wolf down the soaked, fermented, and sprouted grains just as fast as they possibly can.  The only thing they like better than this mix are the table scraps we sometimes give them.  Here are some of them enjoying it in a little trough I made:

It is a little extra trouble, but this method lets me feed them an all-natural, non-GMO, non-Soy feed that they love.  (As you can see in the picture above!)  Further, it allows me to do it cheaper than buying it already mixed.  At current prices, the pre-mixed soy-free, non-GMO, all-natural pig feed is $0.29 per pound.  My mix is $0.235 per pound.  I don’t know for sure, but I think it takes about 900-1,000 pounds of feed to get a pig to slaughter weight in our system.  If so, that saves me about $49.50 to $55 per pig.  And, we just got our first pork back from the butcher yesterday, and this feed produces a pork that tastes absolutely delicious.  It was the best sausage-biscuit that I had had since I was a kid eating the pork my grandparents raised, slaughtered, and processed themselves all right there on their own farm!  (And, in about two weeks, we will have some for sale!)

These little guys joined the farm on January 4, 2014. We went to New Castle to get them, and I held while the guy I bought them from “cut” them.  (If you don’t know what that means, google it.) There are four boys (now, after being cut, “barrows,” or eunuchs, to use a more biblical term) and one girl (a “gilt”). They are about 8 weeks old and had been off their momma for about 2 weeks when I got them. They are Duroc/Yorkshire crosses. They should be delicious come next year! [continue reading…]