The Day of Pigs

Debbie got me a sausage grinder for Christmas, so as night follows day, it’s not unexpected that you would soon find large amounts of unprocessed meat in our house.

 

Half a Hog.

I got half a pig from Krider’s Meat Processing in Columbia City.   We’ve raised our own hogs for meat, but the last time we tried that it turned into a pet and ended up living a long and happy life on the farm and eventually dying of natural causes. (R.I.P. Arthur).

Does the ham look large to you in the picture on the right?  It was huge!  I ended up cutting it into the shank and rump portions.  I didn’t weigh it, but I’d guess the whole ham at 28 pounds.

I got Grandma’s butchering book out and went to work.

Grandma’s Butchering Book (A Family Heirloom.)

Note the highlighted paragraph in that picture.  It’s titled “It Pays to Do a Neat Job of Butchering and Trimming.”  I wonder what the story is behind that.  Why did someone outline that paragraph?  I’ll ask Mom & Dad tomorrow and see if they know.

Carnage ensued.

What a mess.

It’s a mess, but there’s a really nice loin roast in the back, and some dandy spare ribs in the middle.  But the foreground is just various nasty bits for sausage.

Order begins to arise out of chaos.

Pork Chops.

Look at those chops!   Some weighed nearly a pound each so I packaged them individually.   Note: I received no consideration from Coca-Cola, despite what looks like blatant product placement.

I tried making a few cracklings on the stove top.  I thought they were rendering a little slow, so I cranked the heat and then got distracted with the sausage grinder and burned them up.

Cracklings Before I Ruined Them.

Too bad, they were looking and smelling really good before I burned them.

Here’s the bacon.

Bacon.

That’s a 5 pound slab.  I’m doing a dry cure where you rub it with salt, Prague Powder #1, and brown sugar.  It’ll cure for a week, then I’ll smoke it.  I’m doing the ham in a wet cure and I’ll smoke it too.  We have nearly perfect weather conditions and the bacon and ham are curing outside in the refrigerator-like temperatures.

By 2pm I was flagging and I still had the sausage to grind.  Time for a Cuban!

Break Time.

It’s a double espresso and you add brown sugar to the ground beans so it dissolves into the coffee as it’s brewed.   Spirits restored, it was time to make sausage.

The Grinder that Started it all.

The Colonel Watching Over my Shoulder.

After grinding I mixed up a batch of breakfast sausage, hot Italian sausage, andouille,  and a batch of salt-free for my dad. Then it was time to stuff it.  Grandma always stuffed the sausage when we butchered, and I soon discovered it wasn’t as easy as she made it look.

Misshapen Sausages.

But after a few batches I was starting to get the hang of it.

Getting Better.

I smoked the andouille.

Smoked Sausage.

And by 5pm cleanliness and order had been restored.

Done!

We had fresh sausage for supper and even after spending the day up to my elbows in pork, it was wonderful!