i ♥ pork

if it wasn't abundantly clear, i love pork.

and i was finally able to manifest my dream yesterday. heritagefoodsusa.com is having a 20% special on quarter hogs, and i had a 15% off new subscriber coupon (ok so i actually had to use our family email to re-subscribe to get the coupon but you get the idea.)

going in with two other households (Hun & Lily-Tommy), we bought a quarter hog of red wattle--the rarest and most endangered and most succulent porcine breed that we have to eat in order to save from extinction. eat the pig, save the world. google it, but don't cute overload yourself into vegetarianism. red wattle makes niman ranch look like trichinosis. only eating unicorns could be better than this. ok, or maybe an acorn-fed ossabaw.

having limited freezer space, the only way Lily & Tommy could go in for their portion (~12 lbs) was for Lily to start slangin' pork on the side. word got out on the street that we had exclusive, high-quality product, and to make a long story short, now there's folks who want in on the next shipment. it's the urban hustle to survive. over vacation, i'm going to work on setting up a community sponsored agriculture co-op for organic heritage pork. something else to add to my eclectic resume. so you see, your honor, i started with good intentions and that is how i became a dealer. to paraphrase Nancy Botwin "I'm a pork dealer , there, I said it, I'm a f*cking pork dealer"

as for Hun, weo i think he sleeps with his pork under his pillow. he misses Sylvia. she misses the pork. though i'm sure the pork in cambodia is quite tasty.

separately, T & i also got some trotters to make soups. vinamese people believe that pig's feet soups increase milk production in breastfeeding mothers. you ever hear of a sow who doesn't have enough milk for her piglets? so this is my personal lactivism in action.

the pork was delivered FRESH in a cooler on ice. T. is still confused by the physics of that. on sunday, that hog was in pasture; on monday, it fulfilled its' life's purpose; and by wednesday, it was in our bellies. as animal-likers, we won't dwell on the former two aspects. the movie BABE is also being banned from our house and will be added to the n2 contraband list.

it was mostly packaged individually by cuts; the smaller ones in smaller portions, the roasts in huge chunks. i won't get into the listing of cuts. we really should have take a photo last night at the carnage.

so since this is the best pork i have ever had up to now, i figure i will chronicle our eating of it.

last night, using a recipe that i got from Bruce Aidells's Complete Book of Pork: A guide to Buying, Storing, and Cooking the World's Favorite Meat (henceforth referred to as the pork bible) that T got me for my birthday one year, i made Pearl Balls--a pearl-ly rice-encrusted meatball. a lovely dim sum-like dish flavored with shallots, minced ginger, sesame oil, bragg's amino acids (essentially a healthy soy sauce), brown sugar and fresh ground malaysian black pepper with your basic soy sauce, rice vinegar, & hot sauce condiment. we ate this with a vegan butternut squash soup grown by T's mom's neighbor; i modified an america's test kitchen recipe for this and hand-milled the squash for a rustic texture (i learned about this from too much Food Network channel while on maternity leave from Ina Garten) and a brown and sweet brown rice mixture inspired by my venture into kimbap-making for work. T. made pea sprouts.

the flavor of the pork was umami and distinct without being gamey or cloying. not that slight baconish porky like niman ranch porkchops (which are also mighty fine) but another kind of pork flavor that was tantalizingly delicious. can't wait to try the next one.

may the pork be with you.