Receta Butchering a Pork Shoulder
Wares from Flying Pigs Farm, Union Square Greenmarket
I can't believe that God put us on this earth to be ordinary. ~Lou Holtz
I try to be mindful and grateful about the meal on my plate. A lot of effort and carbon went into growing and transporting it, and lives were given up for it, sometimes animal. I even wrote a post about appreciating food. But after butchering a pork shoulder and some winter vegetables for an upcoming slow cooker recipe, I hit a whole new level of food gratitude.
This was the second time I'd made a meat dish in the 8 months since I started eating meat again. In love with my slow-cooker, and hearing multiple stories about how perfect it is for meat, I went to the farmer's market in search of something to braise. After a discussion with a guy at Flying Pigs Farm, I went home with a pork shoulder. My only criteria was simplicity. I wanted to pop the meat in the slow cooker with veggies and flip a button - no roasting or prepping of any type beforehand. He promised the shoulder would fit the bill.
The pork shoulder might have been perfect - but it was a tad too big for my small crockpot. So I started to chop it up. Chopping into the shoulder was entirely different from browning grass-fed ground beef, the other meat that I had made.
The last biology class I had taken was in high school (a very long time ago), and this kitchen exercise reminded me of it. As I cut into the pork shoulder, I called a lifeline to determine whether the skin was edible (he didn't know either. If you do, please let me know.) The skin had small bits of hair on it, and I was pretty sure I didn't want to eat hair so I discarded the skin. Underneath the skin were layers I vaguely remembered from class - fat, membrane, muscle, and bone. And blood. The shoulder had that cool rolling joint in it - I imagine it looks exactly like my shoulder. For the first time, I realized why people get expensive knives. My knife wasn't quite sharp enough for the job, so it took me nearly an hour to cut off the necessary bits.
The whole operation left my soft, citified, restaurant-eating self pretty squeamish and grossed out. I lost my appetite. I'm sure I did just about everything wrong, but as I was unhappily butchering the shoulder, I felt a real connection with my food and a very strong appreciation of the stew I was preparing. When I finished with the shoulder and starting peeling turnips, even the butchering of the vegetables made me nauseous - my appreciation extended to everything that went into the stew. It's a connection that the traditional hunters and farmers are closer to (or for completely non-country folk, the same appreciation that the blue Avatar people have when they hunt).
The stew ended up being delicious. Getting my hands "dirty" gave me a connection that I just don't have when food shows up beautifully plated at restaurants, or when it's precut and ready to pop into the pan. You gotta eat, and getting down with the pork shoulder helped eliminate the distance that is so common in today's food chain. I'm not going to butcher another cut of meat tomorrow, but I will at some point. And in the meantime, I have a whole new respect for everything that crosses my plate.
What I ate: 1 grapefruit, macadamia nuts, 2 cups coffee, 1 latte, cheddar cheese, sushi + salad, 10 wasabi nuts, 1 orange, baby carrots, Heavenly Hummus, Minetta Tavern: steelhead salmon, cabbage + mushrooms + beans, whole wheat spaghetti + Rao's Siciliana, 40 oz. water
Exercise: 30 min stationary bike, 30 minutes lifting