The Whole Hog - Start to Finish

1. There is nothing quite so dramatic as a whole animal. When I was at The Culinary Institute of America we butchered a few larger pieces, but there were always too many cooks and not enough product. I have always felt that we as Americans are alienated from the land and the food that sustains us. This belief was supported by the reactions of our staff to the sight of a whole Pig in the walk-in.

2. The Pig weighed in at 111 pounds. We got it eviscerated and skin on. The first thing that I did was to peel the skin back from the carcass. Starting with the legs I cut all the way around the foot and then ran my knife up the inside of the leg. I use an inexpensive stamped metal paring knife for this. Out of the Thousands of dollars I have spent on knives in my career this $4.00 paring knife is by far the best investment. Using the leg as a starting point I peel the skin back from the carcass. There is a membrane or seam between the sin and the fat or meat. When you are able to find this "sweet spot" the removal of the skin is really a breeze. The Pig was laying on his side as I took the skin off to a point about two inches from the center of his back. Then I flipped him over and did them same on the other side.

3. In this photo you can see where I sliced the skin along his neck and replaced the skin over the carcass. The pig is sitting on the rack ready to go into the smoker. Our smokers are not really set up to cook any thing of this size. We had to bolt two racks together, remove the rotisserie and set the Pig on the floor of the smoker. We covered the ears, tail and eventually the entire head with foil. This was an attempt to keep the parts that would keep the skin through the whole cooking process.

4. We did remove the back legs of the pig from the shank down to the foot. This was done to help him fit into the smoker. This is pretty easy to do. Where you feel the knuckle and see where the two joints work against each other, you cut through the skin to expose the knuckle. There are tendons holding the knuckle together. Take your paring knife and cut the tendons on backside of the leg, as you pull forward on the foot. As the tendons are cut you should be able to expose more and more of the knuckle and more tendons to be cut. It is more a process of separating the knuckle then any sawing or difficult cutting. If you are meeting lots of resitence you have not found the seam. The foot has good amounts of collegen and can be added to your veal stock or Demi-Glace.

5. The pig went into the smoker at about 2:00 in the afternoon. Two large Maple logs were set in to burn and the temperature was set at 220°. One of the great things about The Olde Hickory smokers is the thermostat. The units use gas to fire the wood. This is the primary heat source with the gas kicking in to agument when necessary. We are able to hold a constant temperature over the course of many hours, adding logs as needed. This photo was taken at about 9:30 before we left for the night. The skin has taken on a beautiful mahogany color. However there are still hours of cooking time left. The skin kept our meat from getting too dark as it cooked. It also added flavor and moisture to the pig as it cooked. The only downside is that the smoke does not penetrate as well.

6. The skin came off the pig with ease. There was a bit cutting that needed to be done where we left it attached along the backbone. This shot shows the mussels and bone structure well. It is important to understand what the Pig looks like with his skin off and what he would look like as a skeleton. Butchering has more to do with separating mussels then hacking through them. And much like the removal of the Shanks, when we go to beak this down to the hams, the loin and the shoulders we will be following the mussel separation and the joints not cutting through bones. The only knife used in this process was the paring knife mentioned above. We returned the pig to the smoker added some logs and went home for the night.

7. When I returned at 8:00 the pig was done. I lowered the temperature to 200° overnight and covered the loin (the loin is the long shapely center of the animal connecting the shoulders to the hams) with foil to try to give it a measure of protection from over cooking. This is the one real downside to cooking the whole animal, while the shoulders and hams love the long cooking time and have the inter-muscular fat to stand up to it, the loin is the primadonna invited to the party and needs to be protected. When cooking a turkey I will frequently remove the legs in order to roast the breast to perfection. I like the color we got on the Pig in this photo. You can see the line of the shoulder muscle well here. To remove the front quarter you essentially cut along the curve of the shoulder. Gently done this will reveal the seam along the shoulder leading to the joint which can be easily separated.

8. We left the skin on the head for presentation purposes. Through the last 10 hours of cooking its was tightly wrapped in foil to keep it from getting to dark. Much like serving a fish with the head on this will put some people off. This is the state that every ham, pork tenderloin or spare rib was in before it landed wrapped in plastic on shelf at Kroger's. It is only respectful to bear witness to the Pigs sacrifice.

9. Part of the reason we smoked the pig was for a photo shoot. He is seen here with our Free Range Gerber Chickens, Cornbread, Mac 'n' Cheese and Baked Beans.