Where Pork Comes From

We eat a lot of pork between and during Christmas and Three Kings day, and we get our pork from my wife's cousins, who live a bit up the mountain from us. Juan and Jose raise a few dozen pigs a year, and during the holiday season, they will butcher a dozen or more. We witnessed this one from start to finish, and it wasn't nearly as grizzly has I feared. It didn't even smell that bad. I'll spare you the actual dispatching of the pig, and if you're squeamish, you won't want to watch these videos.



The beautiful young lady in the video is 12 years old, and all the family's children participate.



Practically no part of the pig is wasted. Here, Juan is preparing the intestines for morcilla: sausage made of pig blood and rice. I never developed a taste for this particular delicacy. Juan's wife will finish cleaning the intestines, and make the morcilla.



And here, Jose is remove the meat from the head, which will be smoked.

Serious Pork

I read the Serious Eats blog every day. It's mostly silly, but occasionally, a good post shows up.

My problem with the site is their love of the the National Pork Board. Not only do they kiss up to this sponsor, they also have three or more huge and obnoxious ads on the Serious Eats front page. Distracting to say the least. This in not a problem for me; the best browsers (Firefox and Opera) make it very easy to block these ads.

When they do these kiss-up posts, they turn comments off. Why? Well, how likely is it that someone will comment "Yes! I love the National Pork Board!" And how likely is it that the comments would tend more towards "I hate these ads, please discontinue them with all possible haste?"

How can I enjoy a thought provoking post like "Crunchy or Soggy Cereal?" with all that pork?

I get it. I love pork. I eat it all the time. I don't need to be told how to cook it. Do we even need a National Pork Board? Until they start sponsoring my site, the answer is no.

Where Pork Comes From

Lechón asado is the national meat of Puerto Rico, and Guavate is the capital.

But, of course, we have pork all over the island. These pigs belong to my wife's cousin Jose about half a mile up the mountain from us. When it's time, he butchers them and sells them to the local lechoneras. I'm invited to the next slaughter, and yes, I'm going.

I'm happy to report that these pigs lead very happy lives (at least until that last day).