Pig Pooling

For the last three summers, we’ve been lucky enough to buy part of a hand-raised pig from a local farm. Our friends Dave and Rebecca Buchert run the Island Family Farm on Anderson Island, and we’ve been buying meat from them for a happy few years.

I’ve seen a lot of press and blog posts lately about ‘cowpooling’ or meat CSAs, and how conscientious eaters are trying to change their meat-shopping habits. I don’t know if this is an organic result of the natural/organic trends in food or if this has been helped along by books like the Omnivore’s Dilemma or movies like Super Size Me and Food, Inc. In any case, I’m grateful to know people who know the land, know their animals, and let us play some small part in their lives too. Our life is richer for it.

If you’ve never shared an animal, let me explain how the process works – at least from my experience. This is probably different in larger, more commercial farms, but Dave and Rebecca raise only a few pigs at a time, and this might be similar if you’re in similar circumstances.

How it Starts
When they first get piglets, the farmer will usually put the word out to reserve the pigs. From that point until the pigs are large enough to be slaughtered, the family raises the pigs. Their girls feed the pigs too, and they get plenty of happy attention. I’ve even gone out to the farm and met the pigs myself – something I felt I needed to do. I’m wracked with guilt after meeting them, but I feel like I owe them some respect and gratitude for what they’re giving me. Every time I open the freezer I am grateful.

Time to Go
When the pigs reach their target weight (this could be 175 – 250 lbs, and depends on a number of factors), they slaughtered. This happens off-island in our case, but there’s a new mobile slaughter unit that might make this easier in the future for those island-bound farmers.

Do Your Homework
From there, we start doing our homework. The butcher gets the carcasses, and we need to provide a detailed list of the cuts and preparations we want. Sometimes you go through your farmer to provide this list, but sometimes you talk to the butcher directly. Let me be clear about this step: don’t expect to get meat that looks exactly like what you see at the grocery store, and don’t think you’ll get every spare piece, or that it will come out perfect. It’s not a science. The butcher might be handling requests for several pigs at once, for people who may or may not know what they’re asking for. And not all butchers understand or want to know the complex meals you have planned with those boutique cuts you’ve requested.

Case in point: pork blood. Technically it’s not possible to get pork blood in Washington state, but I’ve seen it at several Asian stores. When I asked Rebecca, she pointed me to the butcher. The butcher pointed me to the slaughterhouse, which is USDA certified. I mention this because the slaughterhouse can be very skittish about their certification, and they don’t want to jeoparize it. A consumer asking for pork blood – even if it’s from their pig – may make them very uncomfortable, and they might not be willing to take that chance for your boudin noir.

The nasty bits are another thing. Frequently butchers take the approach of, ‘well, they probably don’t really mean that,’ when we ask for the weird stuff. We’re not squeamish eaters and we’re pretty adventurous cooks, but butchers aren’t used to dealing with those odd requests every day. I’ve explicitly listed the stuff I want: kidneys, liver, tail, feet, etc – and usually I’ll get one of those things if I’m lucky. Really, all depends on your butcher.

Back to homework. Do it, write it down, think about it. Do you want bacon? Thick cut or thin, or not cut at all? Or do you want uncured belly? Do you want the skin removed? There are a few good resources I’ve used to guide me, and they’re in the More Information section below. Sometimes the butcher will guide you, other times not so much.

From there, the butcher goes to work cutting, curing, smoking, and preparing your order. This could take days or weeks depending on their load. When you finally get the call to pick it up, it’s usually packaged nicely for you, either in butcher paper or vacuum sealed, ready for your deep freezer.

What else do you want to know?

How much does this cost?
You pat the farmer per pound. The farmer determines the per pound rate, and the weight is the pig’s hanging weight, the weight of the pig at slaughter. You also pay the butcher. The more preparation, the more the butcher costs. For example, say you’re a family of four. If the butcher packs pork chops in 4-packs, it will take less overhead than if he packed in 2-packs for a couple. If you have a really simple order, this might cost less than $100. We usually spend about $400 - $500 total for about 75 lbs of meat, and we have enough meat to last us about a year. That’s between $5 - $6/lb.

Wow. How big is your freezer?
7.2 cu feet – small, actually. But we try to get to the bottom of it every year so we don’t have anything let lost in it.

What did you get this year?
I’m still trying to find out the hanging weight, so I don’t know how much we started with, but it feels like about 60lbs of meat. That includes:

• Feet (4)
• Hocks (4)
• Spare ribs (1 rack)
• Uncured belly (7 pieces, about 1 lb each)
• Loin roast (2)
• Shoulder roast (2)
• Ham (2) *we usually get 1 ham and the rest cut as ham steaks, but not this time around
• Italian sausage (8 1 lb packs)
• Country ribs (6)
• Pork chops (14)
• Head (2 halves)
• Kidney (3)
• Spleen (2)
• Heart (2)
• Liver (2)
• Tail (2)
• Leaf Lard (5 packages)

Italian Sausage?!
Yes. Usually when there’s leftover meat, the butcher will grind it and will send along chubs of ground pork. We found out this year’s butcher was Italian and had good Italian sausage, so it saved us the work (we usually make Italian sausage out of the ground pork anyway). Plus, and Italian butcher shop. Come on.

Wait, how many hearts?
After picking up our initial delivery of meat, I went back to Rebecca and bought the nasty bits off her and the other families who had shared pigs. Turned out there wasn't much love for the innards, so I took as much off her hands as our freezer will hold. I'm not too sure about those spleen, but the rest I know we can work with.

Is this the same way it was done for the goat you bought?
No. The goat was farm raised and farm slaughtered, and Rebecca butchered it herself. We were glad too – we didn’t know the first thing about ordering cuts of meat for a goat, or what she’d even be able to do.

What should I think about when deciding the cuts I want?
Ask yourself these things:

• Bacon or pork belly? Sliced or not? Thick or thin sliced? Skin removed or not?
• Ham or whole steaks (or some other combination)?
• Ribs? Does that mean you don’t get pork chops?
• Boneless pork loin = no bone-in pork chops. Is that OK?
• Pork chops: How thick? With or without bones?
• Do you want the nasty bits? Feet, tail, tongue, liver, caulfat, kidneys, heart?
• Do you want the head? The ears? The jowls?
• Do you want the hocks smoked?
• How many people in the family? (this will determine portion size when it’s wrapped)
• Do you want shoulder, loin, or picnic roasts, or do you want a bunch of ground pork?
• How many racks of ribs can you get? What are the baby back ribs as opposed to the spare ribs?

Anything else you want to share?
Don’t freak out when you find hair or nipples or toenails on the feet. It was alive and real, and you’ll just have to come to terms with it.

More Info

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