{"id":118,"date":"2010-02-03T20:14:02","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T01:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/?p=118"},"modified":"2010-03-06T18:31:50","modified_gmt":"2010-03-06T23:31:50","slug":"the-day-of-pigs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/?p=118","title":{"rendered":"The Day of Pigs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

\"pig1\"\u00a0 \"pig2\"<\/p>\n

Half a Hog.<\/p>\n

I got half a pig from Krider’s Meat Processing in Columbia City.\u00a0\u00a0 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).<\/p>\n

Does the ham look large to you in the picture on the right?\u00a0 It was huge!\u00a0 I ended up cutting it into the shank and rump portions.\u00a0 I didn’t weigh it, but I’d guess the whole ham at 28 pounds.<\/p>\n

I got Grandma’s butchering book out and went to work.<\/p>\n

\"book\"<\/p>\n

Grandma’s Butchering Book (A Family Heirloom.)<\/p>\n

Note the highlighted paragraph in that picture.\u00a0 It’s titled “It Pays to Do a Neat Job of Butchering and Trimming.”\u00a0 I wonder what the story is behind that.\u00a0 Why did someone outline that paragraph?\u00a0 I’ll ask Mom & Dad tomorrow and see if they know.<\/p>\n

Carnage ensued.<\/p>\n

\"mess1\"<\/p>\n

What a mess.<\/p>\n

It’s a mess, but there’s a really nice loin roast in the back, and some dandy spare ribs in the middle.\u00a0 But the foreground is just various nasty bits for sausage.<\/p>\n

Order begins to arise out of chaos.<\/p>\n

\"mess2\"<\/p>\n

Pork Chops.<\/p>\n

Look at those chops! \u00a0 Some weighed nearly a pound each so I packaged them individually.\u00a0\u00a0 Note: I received no consideration from Coca-Cola, despite what looks like blatant product placement.<\/p>\n

I tried making a few cracklings on the stove top.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"Cracklings\"<\/p>\n

Cracklings Before I Ruined Them.<\/p>\n

Too bad, they were looking and smelling really good before I burned them.<\/p>\n

Here’s the bacon.<\/p>\n

\"Bacon\"<\/p>\n

Bacon.<\/p>\n

That’s a 5 pound slab.\u00a0 I’m doing a dry cure where you rub it with salt, Prague Powder #1, and brown sugar.\u00a0 It’ll cure for a week, then I’ll smoke it.\u00a0 I’m doing the ham in a wet cure and I’ll smoke it too.\u00a0 We have nearly perfect weather conditions and the bacon and ham are curing outside in the refrigerator-like temperatures.<\/p>\n

By 2pm I was flagging and I still had the sausage to grind.\u00a0 Time for a Cuban!<\/p>\n

\"Cuban\"<\/p>\n

Break Time.<\/p>\n

It’s a double espresso and you add brown sugar to the ground beans so it dissolves into the coffee as it’s brewed. \u00a0 Spirits restored, it was time to make sausage.<\/p>\n

\"Grinder1\"<\/p>\n

The Grinder that Started it all.<\/p>\n

\"Grinder2\"<\/p>\n

The Colonel Watching Over my Shoulder.<\/p>\n

After grinding I mixed up a batch of breakfast sausage, hot Italian sausage, andouille,\u00a0 and a batch of salt-free for my dad. Then it was time to stuff it.\u00a0 Grandma always stuffed the sausage when we butchered, and I soon discovered it wasn’t as easy as she made it look.<\/p>\n

\"Sausage1\"<\/p>\n

Misshapen Sausages.<\/p>\n

But after a few batches I was starting to get the hang of it.<\/p>\n

\"Sausage2\"<\/p>\n

Getting Better.<\/p>\n

I smoked the andouille.<\/p>\n

\"Smoked<\/p>\n

Smoked Sausage.<\/p>\n

And by 5pm cleanliness and order had been restored.<\/p>\n

\"Done\"<\/p>\n

Done!<\/p>\n

We had fresh sausage for supper and even after spending the day up to my elbows in pork, it was wonderful!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Debbie got me a sausage grinder for Christmas, so as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooking","category-farming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}