After a couple of weeks packed in salt and stored in an old dorm fridge (no, really), I rinsed and hung the cured pig jowls (can I say pork cheeks?) and belly. The guaciale, or jowl bacon, is on the left in the photo above and on the right is the cured pork belly.
I ain’ t got no fancy hangin’ room or nuthin’, so they’ll hang to dry in our home “office” for three weeks or so. No, really. It just has to stay below 60° and out of the dog’s jaws.
If you’re making pies (for Easter or any other reason), skip the butter and use lard.
We went on my birthday at the beginning of the month and, in honor of Kate Casper’s piece (not available online available below lost to the sands of time) about the restaurant on Iowa Public Radio this morning, I now offer a few thoughts on Augusta.
The Good
The food is above average and everything — even the mayonnaise and pickles — is made in-house; the restaurant is proud that it doesn’t own a can opener. And the prices are incredibly reasonable (seriously, where else can you get a side of fries for a buck? I mean, besides Micky D’s?)
The Bad
I was disappointed that lots of the entrées were of the hunk-of-meat variety. Perhaps it’s the Midwestern influence showing in their menu.
The Ugly
The waitron we had was, to be delicate, not very good . She wasn’t rude, she just seemed overwhelmed. By us. Her only table. Perhaps it was her first restaurant job. Lucky for us, one of the co-owners bailed her out.
The Details
101 S. Augusta Ave., Oxford, Iowa
319-828-2252
[email protected]
www.augustarestaurant.net
Open Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. until 10 p.m., Sunday for brunch 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. and for dinner 4 p.m. until 8 p.m. Closed Tuesday.
Today I woke up at 5:35 a.m. to kill a pig.
My night’s sleep had been short and I still felt exhausted when I awoke, but that was due to the normal goings on of my life; the pig didn’t stir me from my sleep. How the pig slept, outside the abattoir, delivered for its fate a day and a half before, I don’t know. Frightened? Cold? Lonely?
I called Doug, the butcher, to confirm that we were still on for the slaughter. Yes, he said somewhat to my dismay and somewhat to my relief. Could you be here by 7:30?
The gray light of the rising sun through the clouds seemed appropriately ominous. So did the derailed freight train engine near the interchange onto the highway that would take me to the slaughterhouse.
My muscles tightened and my heart rate rose when I turned off the highway and saw Doug’s white brick building. The drive was shorter than I remembered.
Inside it was a swirl of activity as the butcher’s ten employees broke down an entire side of beef; slashing, slicing, sawing. None acknowledged me as I stood by the cases of meat in the front, waiting while another hog was finished in the slaughter room.
Then it was my turn. I was waved back. Then Doug, in his olive-green boots and faded-purple apron sauntered in. He handed me the .22-caliber rifle.
“Safety’s on.”
The bullet had to pierce the pig’s thick skull to stun it. The shot’s angle and position are everything. If you drew an X from each ear to the opposite eye, I was aiming for the small depression that lay in the middle.
Even at point-blank, getting in position to shoot a pig is a dance with an unwilling partner. I had the added trouble of working up the nerve to pull the trigger. You have to shoot the pig with it looking you in the eye.
Each time the pig looked at me, every time I had a shot, I was slow to act and the pig would move away.
“I know, I know,” I said, answering the pig’s imagined protests. “This is going to be hard on both of us.”
Admittedly, it would be harder on him.
I clicked my tongue to entice the pig to turn his gaze toward me. He obliged. I aimed. Deep breath. Safety off. I pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
Doug took the gun and ejected the misfired round and handed rifle back.
“Safety’s on.”
Again the dance. The pig turned around in his pen. I clicked my tongue. Doug reached in to push the pig back around to face me. He squealed in protest. Doug sprayed water on the ground and the pig turned, put his head down and drank. Aim, Safety off, trigger.
Nothing.
Doug took the gun. I laughed. Doug cleared the misfire then opened the backdoor, aimed toward an open snow-covered farm field and fired. He closed the door and handed the gun back.
“Safety’s on.”
The pig didn’t seem distressed by any of this. He just stood there. He looked at me. Aim, safety off, trigger.
Pop.
The pig’s face went brain-dead blank and he fell to the ground. Doug reached in and cut its throat. The pig thrashed, kicking the wall and gushing crimson. Its movements eventually slowed and its life was over.
Knowing that I would, well, butcher the butchering, I had Doug skin, eviscerate and split the pig.
I was disappointed that I didn’t feel a profound sadness or emptiness. But that disappointment was overwhelmed by a feeling of pride and accomplishment. The killing was an act necessary for the eating of meat but a part that I usually give little thought to while I am eating.
Maybe I’m a heartless asshole for not feeling sadness. But this pig was destined to die so someone could eat him from the day he was born. By participating in his death and dismemberment, I rather think I’m just not in denial.
At least that’s what Heath Putnam says on his blog. And he has a point: their is no direct correlation between quality and size or proximity. But to listen to the food writers, it’s nearly quantifiable.
There are many reasons to seek out local products: support the local economy, perhaps environmentally better, for example. But to just say local or small is automatically better is wrong.
And the bias denies us of great food. I love Michael Ruhlman’s contention (I believe it was in The Reach of a Chef) that FedEx has done more than any single company to change the way we eat; an Iowan can have fresh black truffles shipped overnight.
Finding a local specialty is always a special treat, no matter where it is. But there is no way that I’ll say, for example, Maytag makes the best blue just because it’s produced ninety minutes away.
I understand the appeal of bacon in forms other than cured pig-belly meat. Bacon wallets, bacon bandages, bacon T-shirts. I’m still trying to find bacon gum. (Just think: Chicklet-style crispy outside, juicy inside. Mmm.)
But a friend just gave me what might be the next best thing to bacon gum: Uncle Oinker’s Savory Bacon Mints. (Purchased, he says, at The Machine Shed Restaurant, the Iowa’s answer to Cracker Barrel.) The ingredients list “bacon and mint flavors,” but I taste a sweet smoke flavor with a hint of mint and not much pork. The manufacturer, a Seattle company called Accoutrements, says on its Web site that “mint and bacon is a match made in Heaven.”
That description isn’t as apt as the old version, available via Google’s cache, that has one subtle-yet-key difference. “It may sound weird but once you taste it,” it reads, “you’ll see that mint and bacon is a match made in China.”
Update
Another bacon item, too good to let languish in the comments: bacon cake with beer (and by the looks of it, well-aged beer). At least as awesome, but not fitting with the fake bacon theme, is this real bacon cake.
Herrick Kimball will gladly show you how in just ten steps. The formatting is a odd because he uses a blog to do it, but the information looks good. And you can do it with your kids for a fun family day!
Seriously, who wouldn’t trust the inventor of the “world-famous Whizbang Chicken Plucker?”
On my calendar, on the square for Feb. 28, it says simply “Kill Pig.”
Nine months ago, I held a two-day-old piglet in my hands. She was about the size of a chihuahua. The pig was clean, warm and soft. The pig struggled a little because I wasn’t her mother, and her hooves, not yet worn smooth, were sharp against my bare forearms.
Still, before this month is over, I will have killed her.
When I called to arrange the date, I had expected to do some convincing. I was surprised how unfazed he was when I called to set the date and said I wanted to shoot and stick the beast myself. To him, of course, this is the way of the world: animals become meat just as blossoms become fruit. To the man standing next to me when I do just that, it will be another day at work.
Still, butchers distance themselves from their work. They have their own euphemisms: animals, for example, aren’t slaughtered, they’re harvested. They joke about the blood and guts.
On the one hand I hope I can distance myself in the same way. On the other, I hope I feel the full impact of my intended action.
A surprising number of people do Google searches for “i love dead pigs.”
Not surprisingly, they end up here.
I wrote about the necessity of slow cookers in every Midwesterner’s kitchen. NPR’s Web site has an ode to the device (text only, no audio).
There’s something incredibly satisfying about coming home hungry on a snowy winter’s day and breathing in the savory scent of pork braised in wine — especially when it’s ready to eat when you walk in the door.That’s the beauty of the slow cooker.
Recipes, too.
