In northern Spain, there are ancient hills of pasture and oak trees, like the cross timber of northeastern Oklahoma. For centuries, pigs have been grazing the Spanish dehesa . The sacrificio de cerdos or pig slaughter is the acorn harvest. The oak trees and grasses thrive without competition from understory brambles, cleared by the pigs, and the pigs are thanked with an annual gallimaufry of acorns. This relationship produces the best air dried ham in the world, the jamon de bellota.

These pigs grow at half the speed of their leaner counterparts and produce at least twice the fat content at slaughter weight.  Subjecting these pigs to standard butchery techniques of fat trimming would reduce the yield by at least half.  But these pigs aren’t for chops and boneless loin roasts.  The fat is the point.

Only traditional methods of cutting and curing rightly utilize all the fat.  That is what these shares are for: a feast of salubrious pork fat, unreproved.

This places a strict responsibility on the farmer who must be certain that nothing undesirable, like oily fish or soy, will be fed to the transparent metabolisms of these particular pigs.  Chris Gruver of Uneven Ground Farm has upheld this husbandry standard with uncommon commitment.

His pigs range on over one hundred acres of paddocks in Oregon.  They forage on pasture, garry oak forests, and along streams.  Chris supplements the acorns they find in the forests with hazelnuts from surrounding farms.  In addition, they get a small ration of barley and peas which lends the necessary structure of saturated fat to the lipid profile.  The tannins from the acorns, roots and bark they eat also play their antioxidant role in the fat, protecting its sweetness from the bitterness brought on by rancidity.

This is what the pigs have lived on for almost two years.

Most pigs are harvested at six months.  These Mangalista grow for almost two years. This increased lifespan results in more marbling and more myoglobin in the muscle tissue so that the meat is red. I am honored to harvest Chris’s pigs and offer them to you. My goal is to let the pork do the talking by employing traditional methods. Rather than trim most the carcass and coerce the pork to fit complex recipes with synthetic ingredients, I choose the artistry of the Hungarian peasant who developed the Mangalitsa in the first place.

The peasant kitchen best embodies the marriage of thrift and extravagance. And it is to re-create this well-off frugality and to fulfill my destiny that I offer:

The Meatsmith Mangalitza Half Pig Share

 

Szalonna, cured back fat (similar to Italian lardo and Russian salo).  This is a slab of fat to be sliced thinly and served raw on hot bread with olive oil, or sliced thick on rye bread with vodka, or cut into a chunk to be skewered and melted over a fire to drip lard onto bread with slices of cucumber and onion.  Or use it like pancetta, cubed and rendered in a skillet as the oily medium for fried eggs, or braised greens.  As with all salubrious pig fat, there are infinite uses.  The only way to use it poorly is to use it infrequently. Wrapped for the freezer.

Coppa, cured neck with black pepper, smoked.  Ready to hang in your kitchen for a few months of drying to be sliced thin and served raw with cheeses, pickles, crackers, or on a sandwich.  You can also slice it right away and fry it like breakfast bacon.  Coppa will hang indefinitely at room temperature, even after you start slicing into it.  Like all traditional cures, it may grow beneficial mold.

Bacon, cured with juniper and smoked, sliced and wrapped for the freezer.

Sonka, boneless smoked ham for roasting, wrapped for the freezer.  Cook the ham in a deep roasting pan at 350f.  After about forty minutes, peel off the skin (reserve for stock) and apply a glaze of mustard and honey.  Attentively wax the ham every ten to fifteen minutes with more until it is cooked to an internal temperature of 140f.  Let it rest for 25 minutes before slicing.  Whatever is left over will keep as cold-cut ham in the fridge for well over a week.

Smoked hocks.  These are to be braised, ideally in a pot of dried beans with stock.  Cook gently for two hours, or until the meat pulls easily from the bone. Wrapped for the freezer.

Kolbasz, sausage links for frying, wrapped for the freezer.  Poach gently before frying for 4 minutes, and/or flip only once in the skillet to prevent rupture.  Seasoned with sweet smoked paprika, a hint of heat, onions and pepper.

Back bacon, cured with juniper, smoked, sliced and wrapped for the freezer.  This is bacon made from the loin (aka Canadian bacon); what is commonly turned into chops on leaner pigs.  The loins of lard pigs find their best and highest use as bacon.

Back Fat for larding.  This is frozen square slabs of fat.  Subcutaneous pork fat, or back fat, is the most solid fat on the pig. It therefore lends itself to being thawed, then cut into long strips, clamped in a larding needle and sewn into a lean roast. This fat tastes of hazelnuts and the mild mineral sweetness of demerara sugar.

Guanciale, cured jowl.  Like the coppa, this is also ready to hang in your kitchen, and to be sliced, chopped and set to melt in a low temperature skillet for frying, browning meat or cooking vegetables.  Guanciale will hang indefinitely at room temperature, even after you start slicing into it.  Like all traditional cures, it may grow beneficial mold.

Leaf Lard.  This will be packaged in quart containers and stored at refrigerator temperature.  It is however stable to sit on your counter at arms-length when needed.  This is the original shortening.  It does not have an intense porky flavor and is the best general purpose cooking oil in the cosmos. Substitute half the butter in a pie crust recipe with leaf lard and tie your shoes tight.

Larding needle.  An essential but erstwhile neglected tool for the delicious and thrifty use of solid pork fat in the kitchen.  Clamp a strip of back fat in the jaws and pass the whole needle through a beef roast like London broil, through chicken breast, venison back strap or leg of lamb.  When the needle is removed on the other side it leaves a strip of fat inside the otherwise lean and dry meat, imparting juiciness and ineffable Mangalitsa sweetness.

Stock bones and one tenderloin comprise the fresh meat of the share.  These will be frozen.