Butchery: 101

"Now that you've got a freezer, how would you like half a pig?"

It's not something you hear every day but around here it's not that uncommon. A friend in the village with a bush block in the Marlborough Sounds shoots a lot of pigs and had offered me one before. I was unable to accept last time because we had visitors coming and no freezer. This time: no excuses.

Those of you of a squeamish nature (or any vegetarians) may want to look away and avoid the remainder of this post.

I collected the back half of the pig (minus the legs) and returned home to work out what I was going to do with the carcase. 

I set up our trestle table, covered it in plastic sheeting and found a suitable piece of surplus untreated eucalypt timber to use as a cutting board. I laid out two newly sharpened kitchen knives, a borrowed meat saw, found ziplock bags of a suitable size and stood looking at the bloody mess to work out where to start.

Slicing between the ribs seemed to be a good way to go and once that was done it was a matter of using the meat saw to cut through the backbone. Not as easy as it seems, trying to hold on to a slippery hunk of meat sliding around the place, and sawing at the same time. Once that was done I started to see some recognisable cuts of meat - pork chops.

I carried on slicing and sawing until all of the chops were done. I then found a couple of juicy looking tenderloins which I was able to cut off quite cleanly. The last pieces of meat worth taking from the carcase were a couple of what could be described as rump steaks, at least that is what I'm calling them.

The sum total of the exercise was as follows:

• 15 pork chops
  
• 2 tenderloins
  
• 2 rump steaks
  
• Lots of leftover bits and pieces which will no doubt please Buddy the dog, especially the pelvic bones
  

Given that I have had no training or experience I was reasonably pleased with the results. We are yet to taste them -- that will be another post.

Next time it will be a lot more real. I will be killing one of our wethers. I'll definitely need some assistance for that one. Luckily, one of our neighbours is a retired butcher and has offered to show me the ropes. Look out for another butchery post in the future.

Posted by Farmer Wan