Yesterday, I went to collect our pork from the farmer - 4 pigs worth. As you can see, it pretty much filled the kitchen (much to the fascination of the dog - don't worry, they were in plastic bags).
I portioned it out into one pigs worth for us, our landlady and each set of parents. This meant everyone ended up with the following:
20 pork chops
10 roasting joints of various sizes (some HUGE!)
liver and kidneys
one huge 5kg bag of sausage mince
4 ham hocks (lovely with lentils in a soup)
one tenderloin
two huge bacon joints (basically a large rectangle which we will slice into bits, cure and make bacon out of)
We had a whole leg too, which Oli wants to air cure and make parma style ham out of.
It has all gone in the freezer for now and we will gather the ingredients (vast amounts of sugar/salt, smoking chips, juniper berries, rusk and sausage skins) that we need to start the ham and bacon curing and sausage making bonanza.
I politely refused the heads and the trotters, though we were offered. I know it is a waste, but with only two of us, we will struggle to eat the above before it goes off - without having to go through the grisly business of making brawn (belurgh!) and cooking trotters. Lets face it, nobody eats these out of choice, do they?
Pork supposedly lasts 3 months in a freezer (although our last lot was OK after 6) before developing a strange metallic tang.
