The First Half Pig

This is the year for local meat.  Earlier in the year, after a bit of research, we ended up with a half cow in our freezer.  Then, by some great stroke of fortune, a local farmer, Zekiah Farms, came to our market and began selling meat.  While we’re pretty much set on cow, we’ve gotten quite a bit of pig from Zekiah.  It has all been wonderful – sausage, bacon, chops, yum. 

After a bit of discussion with each other and communion with the freezer, we decided that we should purchase a half pig from Zekiah the next time they took pigs to butcher.  

Since Art has been enjoying his experimentation with smoking, we opted to get most of the pig in the large cuts shown below.  Our side of pig yielded 2 boneless pork loins, 1 tenderloin, 3 shoulder roasts, 3 fresh ham roasts, baby back ribs and spare ribs. 

The rest of the pig came to us in sweet Italian sausage, bacon, and a few ham hocks as shown below.  Lots and delicious bacon and sausage.  We opted to get the sausage loose because we always end up removing the casings anyway. 

Since it’s a grand thing to know where your food comes from, we were actually able to meet our pig at the Charles County Fair!  Art named him Bacon…

All of the meat is frozen solid, USDA inspected, and vacuum packed.  The bacon is nitrate free.  We ended up with around 100 pounds of meat, 27 of those pounds in sausage and bacon.  It fills the top shelf of the upright freezer plus some space on the door.  I can’t wait for Art to get smoking some of the larger cuts!