a 1/4 will be just a tease! LOL I bought a half in May..by August I only had 1 ham and 1 package of chops left..(And for some reason I'm holding on to them)...We blew through the sausage and bacon!!!!!!
The lard..now that's cool!

Use it as shortening! Use it in place of bacon fat for browning or sauteing things...

Lucky girl!
I asked the girl I got the 1/2 piglet from..and they didn't do pigs this time around..but she's got beef...I'm waivering...I know I want it..but making the expenditure....

Good for you Stacy!! How many pounds will it be, do you know? I am getting as much of a pig as I want, well minus my friends 37.5 pounds. I just need to decide what I can afford. Hmmm, I should call her and check on when we have to pay by. It is from a friend of hers so it is a bit loosy goosy and a killer price.

Stacy, now that you are getting pork you should branch out a little. On my cutting form for my lamb I checked every option for organs etc. I did and internet search and found many interesting recipes. I also attend a play group with many African refuge families. I figure if I chicken out I can give it to someone who would appreciate it.

Terri, how many pounds did you have in your half (finished weight as mine is priced by finished weight)?

Stacy, Here is a link to a blog entry about using lard. I am taking my lard as well. Now you need to read Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver etc. I recommend the Eaters Manifesto by Pollan first. Those of us on the soapbox around here about where you food comes form will be happy to make room for you. LOL

-Robin

Here is a link that might be useful: A Cooking Life on lard

robin, it's around 50 lbs. Thanks for the link and the reading recommendations..:-) yeah, I'll think about that "branching out" - lol.

Terri, this is the only place near me, and the guy is completely sold out until next year - so early next year, I will give him a 50 dollar dep. to hold some beef - but not til next Fall. I got lucky that he had this 1/4 available on Monday...it's all he's got.

interesting...:-)

Stacy

Wanna make your own sausage with the trimmings? It's easy if you have a Kitchen Aid mixer, just get the grinder attachment and go to town! Lots of good recipes on the web - I like Alton Brown's or you can get Penzy's sausage seasonings. The bulk sausage can be frozen into patties, it's leaner, fresh, delicious and you know what went in it.

Ask for some of the pork fat if you think you might want to do this. Tell them you want to try making your own breakfast sausage.

Teresa

For a lot of years, my husband's salary package included2 hogs a year...in later years we negotiated for 1 hog and one steer.
I put a lot of lard out for the birds....but I also used it for piecrust...nothing better!
So....what did you get? A mixed quarter? Hind quarter, front quarter?

After a lot of years I finally figured out just what I would eat....and had one loin packed into chops and the other into roasts...and had both shoulders cut into roasts and one ham smoked and halved and the other halved and left fresh, the ribs, packaged, the bacon smoked...and the lard and the liver....and all else atleast 90% lean....which I seasoned myself.
And it seemed that at the end of the 6 months....what I had left were the hams!
Linda C

Robin, I payed for a 60lb half. Which ended up being about 38lbs of useable wrapped pork. Of course the wrapped pork also had bones..so useable meat..certianly alot less.
I payed the "farmer" like 2.91 lb hanging weight, and there was the added 1.19 or so for the butcher for cutting/wrapping.
I think we figured it was just under $7lb for what I used up! But I knew where it was grown, what it was feed..and that life was grand for it's year or so.

It would have been nice to have a finished weight price instead..I was a little suprised by what I got for the money at first..but now I know what the difference between hanging weight and packaged weight it. LOL

Holy Smokes, Terri, here I get meat cut and packaged for 27 cents a pound. Last year's pigs were sold for $150 each and they weighed between 260 and 280 on the hoof, that gets you about 60% hanging or 40% packaged. That's still over 100 lbs for $150 plus 27 cents a pound for cutting and shrink wrap. I paid an extra amount, I don't remember but I think it was another 30 cents, for smoking the hams and bacon.

Stacy, good for you, I have a suspicion you'll be spoiled after eating that. Grandma would never use anything except lard for pie crusts and she also said that fried chicken wasn't as good with anything else.

RobinKate, here the "average" pig will net you about 100 to 125 lbs of finished product.

Annie

Yes Annie, I agree, expensive..but live and learn..I was shocked..especially when a friend bought a half of beef from the 4-H auction at the county fair this year and only had to pay 50cents lb for cut/pack to the same BUTCHER! Ehem! She paid 1.79 for one 1/4 and 1.89 for the second 1/4 of her Blue Ribbon Winner Boy!
I need to find a new meat supplier.. LOL But for my first run..it was great meat and was worth the price..but I'd rather not pay that again!

Stacy, I just reread my post and realized you must have thought I meant branching out to organ meat. I am not even sure I am going to eat the organ meat, I just paid for it so I figured I would take it. Someone I know will want it. I meant branching out to beef, chicken, eggs, cheese... You already have a CSA, see if you can find a winter one.

Holy cow Annie that is an amazing price. I am getting my pork for $4 a pound finished weight. My lamb is more then that, and I am only getting a half lamb.

-Robin

All I have to offer is that the best flour tortillas are made with lard. And, if you get the pork liver as well, that is what makes Boudain taste so good. I wish the grocers here sold that!

Annie, your prices are unbelievable! The straight from the farm meats here are always more expensive than the grocer, unless you go to Whole Foods, where you'll pay 15.00 - 25.00 per pound for many organic, free range meats. HEB also sells some "natural" meats that are crazy priced as well.

Also meant to say that tamales are great made with lard as well...

Why am I craving a pork chop?

wow. So, anyone want to buy a cow? Shipping might be a bit expensive though. LOL

Robin, I didn't use the liver but I used heart and tongue in italian sausage. It was a mix of beef and pork, the tongue and heart, some fennel, tarragon, salt, pepper, asiago cheese and moscato wine, an old recipe from the Italian grocer Elery worked for in Monroe, Michigan, while he was a teenager. So, maybe you could make some sausage?

Annie

I think that the last time we bought and butchered a hog, the whole hog ( big one ) was around 200 dollars and we paid the same for processing. Included was smoked bacon, smoked ham, 2 different kinds of sausage, lard and lots of meat. We split a hog with my folks and it usually lasts a year. We also take 2 cows in a year for butchering and that is the Christmas present from my folks for all 6 of us kids. One is made into hamburger the other the regular stuff. It may sound like a weird present, but knowing the meat was raised on our land and factoring the cost of what meat costs in the stores, it is worth it. We don't have to pay any extra for wrapping and they do a great job, all of the meat is wrapped with food saver bags and they last forever. I can't wait for my folks cow to get fattened up enough for butchering.

Stacie

Btw, ours is grass fed and also put out into the cornfield after harvest, my favorite is the cows that we have that are half angus and half longhorn. They have the leanness of longhorn but the flavor of the Angus.

Teresa, I already have the grinder thing form my KA! i will ask about the fat - thanks.

Linda, I didn't ask "which" quarter - LOL! He normally only sells it by the 1/2 or whole - not sure how he ended up with a 1/4.

Here is what he said. "the cuts would be pork
chops, hams (2-3# chunks), shoulder steaks (2-3 per pack), shoulder
roasts (2-3# roasts), bacon (1 # packs, sliced), breakfast sausage (1#
packs and loose), some soup bones and some lard (about 10 #)if you'd
want it. The meat all comes frozen. So you actually pay me for the
"hanging weight" prior to it being cut up. That is the weight of the
pig with all the bones, and you loose a little bit of the weight during
the cutting process, so you'd probably get around 40 pounds of meat
back."

Annie, I'll be sure to let you know what I think. And yes, i do want to buy a cow...let's work on that shipping issue, OK? :-)

oh yeah, robin, that's exactly what I thought - haha! My CSA is strictly veggies and this guy is separate. You'd think for a pretty rural area, there'd be more options.

hmmmm. tortillas and tamales - both new to me. Here I go again! Learning new things in the kitchen!

Stacie, I think it sounds like a wonderful present - you're very lucky.

Stacy

Best part of farm pig is the fresh ham steaks. Hearts and tounges make excellent pickled snacks... boil in pickling spices and let soak in full strength vinegar for two weeks in the fridge. Best served with saltine crackers and beer.

Lard can be used like most any oil or fat. Great for frying stuff. Doughnuts and eggs come to mind. A big spoonful in beans or pea soup gives a smooth texture and adds stick to yer ribs quality.... it soaks in and won't float on top.

: )
lyra

Lyra/Michael...I think anything served with a beer makes you happy! LOL

Beef and pork is usually sold my the whole, half or quarter. If you buy a quarter, you may buy a hind quarter whidh includes hams and the back end of the loin or the front quarter which includes picnic ham or shoulder roast....or a mixed quater. The hind quarter costs more.....and a mixed quarter is priced between a hinsd and a front.
Sounds like you got a mixed.
I always wanted the hams halved....and occasionally whole...the butcher would argue with me...
"Little, Lady, do you know how big that ham's gonna be??"
I told him..."yeah...I have a lot of friends!" LOL!
Linda C

LindaC, I went one step further, I got my hams halved, with "a couple of slices" out of the middle. That gave me half a dozen ham steaks, along with those half hams.

Stacy, if they ask, you want the hocks smoked too, they're great for bean soup and to add to greens. I even get the "jowl bacon". Yup, that's the jowls, or the cheeks. They'll slice it and smoke it and it's like very lean bacon.

LindaC, if you bargained away a pig for a steer, you got a heck of a deal. A pig is small, cheap, grows fast. That $40 (less years ago) feeder pig will be ready to eat in 6 or 8 months. That $400 feeder calf won't be ready for 16-18 months and eats a lot more.

Annie

LOL! Yep....but you forget....my hubs was the boss!!
And we had a lot of the sort of beef where Donn would come home and say....best organize the freezer......we're splitting some beef with John or Larry or whoever the farmer was on that particular farm.
Tehre were times when the farmer "needed" half a beef and also needed someone to pay him for the other half....and a couple of times when a Holstein had been running with the heifers and wouldn't "settle" and when a bull calf, for some reason had been castrated and, we took half...
Ever had tough hamburger? LOL!
So, yep, when we could we bargained a steer for a pig....but the steer wasn't always angus!!
Linda C

Annie, that is a great idea. I am going to have the lamb kidney, tongue, heart, liver and the bones. I am just too darn frugal to say no, don't give me some of that meat I paid for. The kidney is easy enough as Lewis loves steak and kidney pie and I assume it will not be that different or challenging. As a child I used to love tongue deli meat. now I am more squeamish, too many years not eating it and thinking at the same time.

I just checked my library and they have a copy of the sausage book you have, Charcuterie. Wahoo I can use it to make lamb sausage and also pork.

-Robin

Oh boy, you did get tough burger if you were eating Holsteins!

People who aren't really beef farmers figure that Holsteins are bigger, they're cheaper, beef is beef. They don't realize that their Holstein beef is going to cost them more in the long run because it takes so darned much feed to get them to slaughter condition. They're tall, long legged, bony. Milking cows, not beef cows. However, since they were dairy animals, the farmers had no use for a bunch of male calves and often you could nearly get them given to you. The farmer often ate Holstein himself because that's what was available. If there was any "good" beef it got sold, the farm families ate the other stuff!

Yup, if you ate Holstein you were not getting the most tender of the lot, LOL.

Annie

A while back I did some reading on lard and the things I remember are
-the lard bricks bought in stores are (1) made with fat from all over the pig, even possibly the stuff under the skin which is fairly poor quality and (2) partially hydrogenated (?) and probably processed and bleached in ways I didn't even find out about.

-all lard is not created equal, different fat from the pig is better or worse quality for cooking purposes
-usually what's cited as the best quality lard is called "leaf lard". It is a very dense white fat from around the kidneys (called suet in cows).

I would suspect that your 10 gal's of lard includes fat trimmings from all over the pig. Nothing wrong with that per se and its probably not partially hydrowhatevered. You might want to ask how they come up with the lard though.

As an experiment last April? May? I got leaf lard from a butcher shop outside of town than gets and butchers hogs on site.
I was suspecting the sort of suet looking balls like cows suet but it was more...flat and long and quite big, short of butterfly shaped - like maybe it was wrapped around the kidney and pressed. It also looked almost encapsulated in a film.
Ok - well I'm pretty squeamish but I carried on! I cut half of it into smaller chunks and put in my LC dutch oven with a couple tablespoons of water, put in oven pre-warmed to 350, then lowed the temperature and rendered my own lard. (I threw away the other half)

Wow, the smell was horrendous! :) I could have let it render more but after it was mostly rendered I was tired of gagging (this with a window open) I scooped out the bigger chunks, poured it through a strainer and then cheesecloth once or twice and ended up with probably 3 cups of really nice looking white lard (actually it turns white in the fridge).

This is the sort of thing that really argues for good vent hoods in kitchens not the crappy microwave ones that are everywhere now days. I felt like my throat, my apt, was coated in.....something.

Still I think if you are a foodie and want to splurge once in a while on that authentic flavor of tortilla's fried in lard, or really flaky pie crust, its not that bad. And certainly better than the hydrogenated stuff. There is a Canadian brand that advertises as non-hydrogenated.

I wanted this for pie pastry experiments but of course I'm more a reader, thinker and the actual experimentation doesn't often happen so I haven't actually used any yet LOL! So I can't tell you whether its as wonderful as the foodie's articles would lead us to believe.
I'm not sure how long its good in the fridge where half of it sits to this day. I froze the other half.

There, more than you ever cared to know about lard:)

I've rendered my own lard and don't remember any nasty smell....but I did it on top of the stove in an open pot. I just very slowly cooked it at a very low heat until I had a lot of melted fat in the pot....I was very careful not to get it too hot and it never smoked of put off greasy fumes.
I think you cooked it at a way too hot temperature....that's why the smell.
The old timers had a device called a lard press....it was a perforated cylander with a top on it that you coule crank down to squeeze the last of the lard out of the cracklings. Probably held 7 or 8 pounds of fatty stuff....
Linda c

I did cow suet on top of the stove at lowish heat for bird suet and it smelled the place up pretty good too.
I don't know, maybe my heat was too high at first but I did lower it after I put it in, I was just sort of kick starting the heat. I followed what a bunch of websites said to do....and I hesitate not to cook pork throughly, even in this day and age.

You don't need to "cook" the lard....just render ti out of the tissue.
for beef kidney suet, just use it as is....feed it to the birds in a chunk or grind it up for suet pudding or mince meat.
As for overcooking pork...pork is very different now than it was 30 to 40 years ago. The hogs are much leaner and we have eliminated trichinosis. Overcooking just makes it tough.
Linda C

As suggested, lard is great for making tamales - it is one of the essential ingredients. I got lard for free from the Cuban meat market near me where I buy fresh masa. They put it in a styrofoam cup - it is one of the by products of something they make there. Pork tamales are the best, but unfortunately DB won't eat pork - he things of pigs as pets. I think you can use lard in making biscuits as well.

Lars

thanks for all the great info here - I rendered my lard successfully - see thread.

I also ended up with about a pound of pig liver and half of the heart. Uses?

Thanks everyone!
Stacy

Pork liver makes a good pate.

Jim

I agree, pork liver makes great pate, and if I didn't use the heart in sausage I'd cook it and use it for dog treats for Elery's dog. WonderWeiner used to love the heart and tongue cooked and cut into "treat" sized chunks.

Rendering lard did have an odor, but I don't remember it being horrendous. Of course, we did it outside in a HUGE kettle, so maybe the fresh open air helped. A lot. LOL.

Robinkate, I'm interested to know how your lamb sausage turns out. Lamb is very expensive here, and I don't grow any, but Elery likes lamb, so if it's spectacular, I'd love to know that. I think Charcuterie is a great book, Elery and I made the pancetta and it was really good and easy.

Lars, Grandma used to use lard to make biscuits, sometimes even cookies, although I'll admit I didn't like those as well as the ones with butter. I'd forgotten about tamales, one of my interns used to bring in tamales, her mother was here from somewhere in Northern Mexico. Lard is available at all the mexican groceries around here.

Suet? Nope, I don't use that at all. Since the government decided after WWII that the best use for the excess grain was as animal feed, cows are too fat. Grain is bad for their digestive systems since they are ruminants and should be eating grasses and hay and they get fat fast and require constant doses of antibiotics to stay even moderately healthy. It means profits for the producers but it's bad for the consumer, they are paying for the fat, and it's unhealthy fat to boot. The only thing today's suet is good for is bird feed, I take chunks of suet, put them into a mesh bag and hang them for the nuthatches and woodpeckers. Grandma used to use it in mincemeat, but I make pear mincemeat now from Nancy's recipe, no meat or suet in it at all!

Annie

Suet pudding is wonderful!...Traditional steamed plum pudding....mmmmmmm!