Pig breed/rearing

Selection of Pork Recipes

Pig breed/rearing

Postby thelawnet » 16 Jul 2012, 18:45

One of the factors in US BBQ is IMO that there is so much intensive factory farming of what is to my mind bland meat. So the BBQing process adds flavour to meat that doesn't have any.

Basically it seems that the BBQing process shoots the meat with so much smoke, chemicals, sauces, and so on, that you can get away with shit meat. Which makes sense from an economic standpoint, although if you are putting £20 worth of imported sauce, rubs, injections and mops on it, not to mention £1000 of hardware and expensive charcoal, perhaps not so much.

Any thoughts?

I personally find that supermarket pork tastes pretty nasty if it's just roasted. But the outdoor-reated is much better.

I bought this little piggy before:
Image

for roasting/grilling/etc. the taste was superb.

I think that the industrial pork process is pretty nasty, certainly much worse than battery farming, chickens are incredibly stupid I'm not too concerned about them, but pigs are not that much different from a pet dog.

This is the world's largest producer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_vqIGTKuQE

To be truthful, the meat/breeds are shit, the husbandry is shit, but it does taste pretty good with BBQ sauce.... :roll:
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Re: Pig breed/rearing

Postby Pecker » 16 Jul 2012, 19:14

I think there's little there in fact that I'd disagree with. It's received wisdom from the history of cookery that poor, tasteless meat needs lots of 'something else' to make it taste good.

Where I'd potentially disagree (and by this I mean I'm not totally sure with what you think we should do as a knock on effect of this) is what we do about that fact.

You can work up, in your own words, "...so much smoke, chemicals, sauces, and so on, that you can get away with shit meat", or you can balance the other flavours with a good quality meat.

Personally, I don't like buying shit anything, and then compensating with other ingredients. I like buying the best quality everything (that I can afford) and balancing the flavours accordingly.

Good beef, pork, chicken, lamb, fish, is all a part of excellent food, and none of it needs obliterating.

But now you've got me thinking. If you've got a good quality sauce/smoking process/whatever, and it's going to smother the flavour of the meat, then you either ditch the sauce/smoke, buy expensive meat and waste your money, or buy 'shit' meat.

My philosophy is to build your meal round your prime ingredient (in this case the meat), but I suppose there are different ways to do it.

Right - back to a very basic rule which I'd always follow. On the one hand, if you have a really good quality piece of pork (or whatever), don't spoil it with overpowering anything else. On the other, if your sauce/rub/smoke are going to be overpowering, then don't buy a really good quality piece of (for example) pork.

For me, I'd never do the latter. It's a bit like buying poor quality rock music, then playing it loud so you can't tell how bad it is.

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Re: Pig breed/rearing

Postby KamadoSimon » 16 Jul 2012, 19:53

Steve - kind of agree with you. Get the best produce you can, then emphasise it. But For me the decision is a little less about taste and more about the wellfare of the animals. Having watched Jimmy's latest effort regarding how animals are brought up in intensive farming, my personal opinion is that if i am going to eat meat then i can only do so if i know the animal has had a decent time. My wife and I decided that the least we can do is only eat free-range meat. It will mean we eat less (due to cost - but also no bad thing), but it won't taste worse and our conscience will be a lot better off.

If we had the ability / land, i'd love to rear our own pork & chicken.
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Re: Pig breed/rearing

Postby thelawnet » 16 Jul 2012, 20:03

Pecker wrote:I think there's little there in fact that I'd disagree with. It's received wisdom from the history of cookery that poor, tasteless meat needs lots of 'something else' to make it taste good.


I don't think that's quite true.

If you have a high quality pig or cow and you butcher it, then all the meat from it is high quality. Some of it might be fillet steak and subject to 2 minutes cooking time, and some of it might need 5 hours braising, but it's all good stuff.

I think what I perceive bad meat is largely a modern phenomenon born of marketing and factory farming. Ok some breeds of chicken are tougher than others, Mrs. Brown's cow might be a bit scrawny, but I wouldn't say that it's poor meat. It just needs different cooking. An old boiling chicken or tough bit of beef is delicious, and it doesn't need MSG or Butchers BBQ or Fab B or whatever to make it so.

I love these chickens: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_(chicken) but you cannot grill them, they are tough and lack meat; they must be curried/stewed/braised in order to exploit the superior flavour profile. Is it suitable for BBQ chicken? No. But that doesn't make it poor, in fact it's a premium product that sells at double the price of other breeds in its native market. Not only that, but it's the oldest breed of chicken in the world, and is much tastier than any modern breed, the modern breeders have brought big mutant breasts and meatier legs, but less flavour and an overall inferior product. That's what I mean about no poor meat originally.

I would be very surprised if the factory breeds are best for anything, except making money.
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Re: Pig breed/rearing

Postby aris » 16 Jul 2012, 20:05

Anyone got a good source for Gloucestershire Od Spot pork? Preferably someone who does mail order.
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Re: Pig breed/rearing

Postby Pecker » 16 Jul 2012, 20:16

thelawnet wrote:
Pecker wrote:I think there's little there in fact that I'd disagree with. It's received wisdom from the history of cookery that poor, tasteless meat needs lots of 'something else' to make it taste good.


I don't think that's quite true.

If you have a high quality pig or cow and you butcher it, then all the meat from it is high quality. Some of it might be fillet steak and subject to 2 minutes cooking time, and some of it might need 5 hours braising, but it's all good stuff.

I think what I perceive bad meat is largely a modern phenomenon born of marketing and factory farming. Ok some breeds of chicken are tougher than others, Mrs. Brown's cow might be a bit scrawny, but I wouldn't say that it's poor meat. It just needs different cooking. An old boiling chicken or tough bit of beef is delicious, and it doesn't need MSG or Butchers BBQ or Fab B or whatever to make it so.

I love these chickens: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_(chicken) but you cannot grill them, they are tough and lack meat; they must be curried/stewed/braised in order to exploit the superior flavour profile. Is it suitable for BBQ chicken? No. But that doesn't make it poor, in fact it's a premium product that sells at double the price of other breeds in its native market.

I would be very surprised if the factory breeds are best for anything, except making money.


Law, great post!

I think there are certainly exceptions, and you note a few of those. But I hope I was making a more general point about the standard of meat in UK supermarkets. Lots of animals bred to put on tasteless food, quickly.

It's just the importance of noting the difference between cheap animals and cheap cuts. The most expensive cow sold in the UK this year, and the cheapest cow sold in the UK this year, in each case the fillet will bring more £ per lb than brisket.

And in each case the more expensive animal will taste better, irrespective of the cut.

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Re: Pig breed/rearing

Postby thelawnet » 16 Jul 2012, 20:56

I like to buy meat in Waitrose (larger ones are better), they sell cheap cuts from good-quality pigs:

http://www.waitrose.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... ek+(per+kg).html?storeId=10317

Check the meat counter.
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Re: Pig breed/rearing

Postby keith157 » 17 Jul 2012, 05:58

Pecker wrote:
thelawnet wrote:
Pecker wrote: Lots of animals bred to put on tasteless food, quickly.

It's just the importance of noting the difference between cheap animals and cheap cuts. The most expensive cow sold in the UK this year, and the cheapest cow sold in the UK this year, in each case the fillet will bring more £ per lb than brisket.

And in each case the more expensive animal will taste better, irrespective of the cut.

Steve W


Couldn't agree with you more, the older breeds were phased out due to the higher fat to meat ratio which brought about the bland taste we generally find in supermarkets the "housewife" would rather have more meat to fat for the same price. The intervention of the EEC in the late 70's-80's stopped the age old habit of allowing pigs to be swill fed or to graze orchards, some of the more mature members may recall a slight fishy taste to pork for a while in the mid 80's-90's as they were fed on fish pellets.
The old breeds, properly outdoor/barn reared allowed to mature slowly will give the best taste without any flavour boosters such as herbs, rubs, sauces etc. BUT enhancing good tasting pork with subtle blends of those spices smokes etc will produce a truly magnificent taste. Sadly all this slow growth comes at a price which is too much for the average shopper to pay as various test and enterprises have recently shown. People (a generalisation I know) want food and other goods to be as cheap as they can get them regardless of taste hence things like Tesco's 9p sausage :shock:
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Re: Pig breed/rearing

Postby crphillips » 12 Aug 2012, 18:34

I've never put a supermarket piece of meat on my grill. Its a waste of pellets. I always go to the butchers. The issue with many butchers nowadays is that they're not proper butchers. They're generally selling the same vacuum packed cuts of meat that the supermarkets sell. Many butchers don't seem to know much about meat anymore.

The butcher I use has around 10 beef carcasses hanging in his cold room. I can go in there and specify which bit I want and it's butchered there and then.

I use the best meat I can on my grll. I don't put cheap crap on it.
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Re: Pig breed/rearing

Postby Tiny » 12 Aug 2012, 18:53

Its a tough subject, ,most of us would like to go for the organic free range loveliness.......Sainsburys pork shoulders 2.75 a kilo? and where do I sign, once it has had the full smoke and Q treatment I recon most of us would happily chow down and enjoy.

Was lucky enough a couple of years ago to get a chunk of a tamworth boar that had lived his life in the weald and downland museum in Sussex. A full 2" of fat on his leg and roasted was the bestest of the very bestest porky crackly goodness ever......but £30 for a sunday lunch and a little leftover.

Today had a slow roasted piece of belly pork from johnny siansburys, cost us £3 and did the job.

hard facts is most of us want to do right by the animals until the price comparison tips us over the edge. To those that resist I salute you, but I do not have the resolve to my shame.......

Cheers
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