Bye Bye Wilbur

This book by the USDA isn't technically a cookbook but it was among a lot I purchased that came from an estate sale so I'm counting it. There are a few recipes in the back: fresh and smoked sausage, bologna, headcheese, scrapple, and something called panhas that I've never even heard of before. Talk about using every part of the pig...panhas is polenta made with the "soup" leftover from making headcheese. Ethically, I think every scrap on an animal should be used, but in my case, used by someone else. Ethically, I think if you are going to eat meat, you should be willing to look the animal in the eye as you slaughter it. By this standard, without the help of grocery stores with their pristine white cellophane-wrapped styrofoam trays, I would quickly become a vegetarian.

Still, this book is fascinating reading, especially to a midwestern woman who is surrounded by the pork industry. It's copyright 1976 but there's a quality to the pictures, and one headshot with a glimpse of hairstyle, that suggests this is a reprint of older material. It begins with the proper equipment needed for slaughter though it assumes you know what a gambrel and singletree are. It tells you how to care for the animal:

"Pen the animal by itself the day before butchering. A hog bleeds more thoroughly and dresses more easily after a 24-hour fast, during which it is given all the water it will drink. Do not run the animal or wrestle with it; this can cause a temporary fever and, if the animal is killed before it quiets down, the meat is likely to be bloody (sometimes referred to as fiery). Such meat looks bad and spoils easily. Bruises and whip marks cause bloody spots, which must be trimmed out."

Poor thing, no last meal. There are diagrams for how to "stick" the pig properly--go for the carotid artery not the heart--and information on scalding the carcass--apparently you have to use a slightly higher temperature in winter when they have thicker hair--though always making sure not to set the hair or cook the skin. There's a picture of two men dipping a hog in a barrel. Next the animal is cleaned and scraped.

I swear this pig is smiling.

Next there's many pages on removing the internal organs and cutting up the carcass. Here I learn that there's ruffle fat and leaf fat that can both be preserved for lard, and that overall, it's a lot of work to get this critter processed into its various portions. A lot of work. And then there's all the decisions about preservation: cold storage? smoked? canned? dry cured? And then what do you do if skipper flies attack your meat? "Trim off and burn the infested parts. Larvae may burrow deeply along the bone and shank. Prevent further damage by refrigerated storage."

This book has blueprints for building a smokehouse or a pit and barrel smoker if you don't want to go that far. All in all, a fascinating expose that I will try my damndest to forget I ever read. I'll leave you with the recipe for pickled pig's feet.

Pickled Pigs' Feet
In preparing pickled pigs feet, take special care to clean them thoroughly. The toes and dew claws should have been removed when the carcass was dressed. Trim out glandular tissue between the toes and remove all hair and dirt. Unless you care for them properly, feet begin to spoil about as quickly as any part of the carcass; therefore, put them into cure immediately after thorough chilling.

Cure clean, chilled feet in brine for 15 days to 3 weeks. Make the brine by dissolving 1 pound salt, 1/4 pound sugar, and 1/4 ounce saltpeter in 9 cups of water. Weight the feet to keep them from floating above the solution. Use enough solution to submerge the meat. Keep pork cold throughout curing period (at 36-40 degrees F., if possible).

Slowly cook or simmer cured feet until they are tender. Cook them slowly to keep the skin from parting excessively and the feet from pulling out of shape. Thoroughly chill the cured, cooked feet and pack them in cold, moderately strong (35 grain) vinegar, to which you can add spices such as bay leaves or allspice. You can use the feet at once or keep them in the vinegar for about 3 weeks.

Ah, here's the small print: This bulletin supersedes Farmer's Bulletin 1186, Pork on the Farm, and Leaflet 273, Curing Pork Country Style. Issued October 1959, slightly revised August 1973.