*December 4th-6th class is OPEN*

The yield of the pig is so expansive and diverse that we lack the time to cover it all in our original Family Pig class. The Family Pig II is a three-day harvest of completely new material. It is not merely adding recipes to the list, but conferring competency in traditional processes to establish the well-off frugality of the family table.

Using antique cutlery and your hands, this extensive class transforms a heritage breed pig into fresh, fermented, and preserved pork. Among the many techniques, we will make and learn to use a preservation brine. We will make rillettes, preserving meat with fat in the confit pot. The intestines will be treated artfully, beguiling their customary baseness. We will transform the head into headcheese, and the trotters into a meal that has become a favorite at the Sheard table. 

Though it is a “part II” to The Family Pig series, no prior experience is required. The Family Pig II is simultaneously another way to harvest a pig, and a way for those who have been to The Family Pig to broaden the human power of artful nourishment.

*October 3rd-4th & October 24th-25th classes are open*

Using your hands and antique cutlery, we will harvest two grass finished Dexters.  We will transform one aged carcass into kitchen-sized cuts for the home’s pots, pans, and ovens. We will unknit the carcass without creating any waste. Our yield will be 100% of hanging weight in resolute distinction from the convention of wasting over half the harvest. The silhouette of the magnanimous bovine is our only parameter.

The smaller-framed Dexter allows for a better meat-to-bone ratio.  All the harvesting is identical to tall, heavy breeds.  Go home equipped to repeat the harvest on your own with any beef you raise.

This class is for the beginner and the experienced alike. In two days, you will have gained enough hands-on experience to artfully harvest cattle at home.  The Dexter is small enough to fit your backyard grazing regimen and your home kitchen.  These Dexters have been fattening on grass alone, so in addition to the slaughter and butchery, we will cover the range of grass fed beef cooking.  These means that we will eat extremely well throughout both days.

These Dexters are artfully rotated on the cross timber prairie grasses of Oklahoma and never fed grain.

*Our only poultry class of 2025 is November 7th-8th*

The goose is the noblest bird of the farmyard.  As grazing waterfowl, it supplies the home kitchen with utterly unique provender.  Starting with living geese, we will transform them into undiluted goods for the family table through the culinary traditions of the premodern peasant.

“The confit pot is one of the most useful storage items in the French farmhouse kitchen.” -Elisabeth Luard

With the convenience of refrigeration so widely available, we can easily ward off spoilage, at least for a little while. But this ease comes at the cost of flavor. The freezer cannot improve the meat it contains; it can only delay its inevitable demise. Older methods of preservation not only keep meat from going bad, but help it to go good. The traditions of our fathers in preserving the harvest evince thrift and extravagance in equal measure. One of these methods is confit.

*The only 2025 class is October 16th-18th* 

The Family Pig I is an earnest and winsome course in domestic pig raising, harvesting and eating. Inspired by the pig, we go deep and wide in the preservation of pork, the salting of bacon, the harvesting of innards, the carving of flesh and the unreproved indulgence in fat and salt.

You take with you not only a package of educational material and sausage of your own making, but the working knowledge of harvesting two pigs from the field to the two-year-old prosciutto hanging in your kitchen.