Supermarket Pork: Not Cheap at Any Price

In the second installment of my interview for Food Farmer Earth, Kendra Kimbirauskas of Goat Mountain Pastured Meats explains the costs that we all pay, in our health, in damage to the environment, in our tax dollars subsidizing big corporations, for conventionally raised pork.

What is it really costing us to feed our families, and which would you rather put on your table?

Watch Part One: A Passion for Pigs.

Food Farmer Earth: A Passion for Pigs

It's no secret that I love the farmers, food producers and chefs of the Northwest. So when Rebecca and Fred Gerendasy of Cooking Up a Story asked me if I'd be interested in working with them on their new series called Food Farmer Earth they barely had time to finish making the offer before I said, "I'm in!" This interview with passionate pastured meat rancher Kendra Kimbirauskas is the first of the stories I worked on in the capacity of producer, and the first of many you'll be seeing on GoodStuffNW.

Kendra Kimbirauskas (left, with her "bacon maker" LV) grew up on a small farm in the Midwest watching her parents working long hours to make ends meet. With an intimate knowledge of the day-to-day struggles farmers face, after college she became an activist on the issues affecting small farms, working on factory farm issues in Iowa.

Baby pigs napping in their pasture.

While there, she also spent time at Niman Ranch, working with a co-op that supplies pork to Chipotle restaurants. The experience of raising pigs outdoors on pasture resonated with her and in 2006 she decided that it was time to "walk her talk." Putting her beliefs into action, she and her husband, Ivan Maluski, started a small, organic farm on a few acres in Colton, Oregon.

Gretel and her brood.

At Goat Mountain Pastured Meats they raise goats, whose milk Ivan uses to make cheese, along with chickens, horses, pigs and two rescued oxen. They are committed to farming in a way that provides high quality, healthy and affordable organic food while protecting the biodiversity of the land and its water. 

Read the rest of Kendra's story and consider subscribing to future Food Farmer Earth posts! Also, Kendra explains what it really costs to raise pork conventionally in Supermarket Pork: Not Cheap at Any Price.

Thinking of Eating: The Meat of the Matter

I arrived at Portland's Culinary Workshop (PCW), where I would be butchering my half of Roger, about thirty minutes before Clare was to arrive with him and her half of Don. I walked in to find the tables set up for the butchering along with the various knives and saws we'd be using to do the job. In the spirit of the day, there were also two tubs set up to hold the butchered meat, one labeled "Roger" and the other, "Don."

Melinda Casady, Mistress of Meat.

A hands-on cooking school started by my neighbor, Susana Holloway, and her friend, Melinda Casady (left), both former culinary school instructors, PCW seemed the perfect place for this part of the process. Especially because Melinda, nicknamed "The Mistress of Meat," loves to teach people how to cut up whole animals or, to use the term of art, "break down" carcasses.

Roger's tub.

The halves of Roger and Don had been hanging in Clare's shed at the farm to chill overnight, and when she drove up they were cool as cucumbers, wrapped in plastic sheeting in the back of her truck. She'd stopped at a friend's winery on the way in and weighed the halves, with my half of Roger coming in at 96 pounds, making his live weight close to 320 pounds. Quite the pig.

Just getting started.

We carried the carcasses in and laid them on the tables—end to end it was about five feet of pig to cut up—and Melinda discussed with each of us the different ways we could cut up our pig. Did we want lots of chops and steaks? Or would we rather have more roasts? Big or small? Bone in or out? What about the ribs? Did we want whole racks?

Can't wait to throw these on the grill!

Some decisions were easy…we're more roast types than steaks, but a nice chop is good once in awhile, too. Some decisions we left until we saw what the actual cuts were like, made easier because the breaking down involves cutting the animal into large sections called primals, then sectioning each primal into smaller and smaller pieces. It also involves finding and cutting out glands and other non-edible bits, and I was glad for Melinda's expertise with that particular chore.

I gotta get me a hacksaw.

There was very little waste, even from a pig that big, since I was planning on making stock from the bones and making sausage with the inevitable collection of scraps of meat and fat. While I was secretly relieved that I'd decided not to keep the head because it would be too recognizable as Roger, I was also a little sad I wouldn't get to make scrapple again.

Getting a little rummy.

While I won't go into the blow-by-blow on breaking down a carcass, it was fascinating to see how much a pig's anatomy resembled our own, and how the different joints are connected. Emotionally it wasn't hard to do, probably because the carcass didn't look like Roger any more (the head thing again), and I was focusing on the job at hand, trying not to slice myself up in the process. It was all kind of geeky in a messy, sweaty sort of way and as we got down to the last few cuts, after four hours or so of work, I was getting really exhausted.

Wrapped and ready.

When the wrapping and packaging were finally done, we opened beers and a bottle of wine and toasted, first, Roger and Don for the wonderful meals they'd provide, then ourselves and Melinda for a job well done. Roger is now resting comfortably in our freezer, and I can't wait to have our first dinner featuring him.

Read the other posts in this series: Roger and Me, Roger Grows Up, Saying Goodbye, The Day Finally Comes and Pasture to Plate.

Thinking of Eating: The Day Finally Comes

I hadn't slept well the night before the slaughter, waking up several times thinking about what was going to happen later that day. It was odd because I'd witnessed a slaughter at Clare Carver's Big Table Farm before and, while it had been both moving and fascinating, I certainly hadn't lost sleep over it.

The turmoil reminded me of the time several years ago when I had scheduled our vet to come to the house and put our beloved old Husky, Nikki, to sleep. The night before he was to come, my mind roiled with conflicting thoughts. "Maybe today's not the right day. Maybe the vet won't be able to make it. Maybe…" But of course the morning came and he did as we had asked, giving our old girl a peaceful sendoff.

Around three o'clock I picked up my friend Linda, who was coming to watch the slaughtering process, and we drove out to the farm. It was a beautiful warm day, and Roger and Don were hanging out in the shade of their pig house. Richard arrived in his truck and pulled on his big orange rubber overalls and mud boots, clipped the white chain carrying his knives around his waist and picked up his small black rifle. As Richard walked up to the pigs, Clare was feeding them raw eggs, one of their favorite treats, just as we'd done the day before.

I'd hoped that Roger would be the first, since I was worried that he might be upset if he noticed Don getting shot, but I couldn't tell which pig Richard was closest to. If I could have yelled, "Stop!" I would have, but Richard put the point of his gun to the back of the pig's head. There was a popping sound as the gun went off, and the pig flopped over. Richard then straddled him, cut one of the arteries in the neck and blood started spilling out onto the ground (above left). There were some residual muscle spasms as the pig's heart pumped the blood out, but it quieted and I was able to go over and confirm that, yes, it was Roger. I couldn't help reaching over and scratching him behind his ear.

By then Richard had finished with Don and was getting ready to drag the bodies up the hill to the shed where he'd dress the pigs. It's a frankly fascinating process, and Richard is a master at field dressing, the skinning, gutting and halving of whole animals. At this point it was hard to identify the carcass as being Roger, the pig I knew, which made it easier to watch.

When it was all over, my half of Roger and Clare's half of Don were eventually hung in the shed to cool overnight (above right), we washed the driveway of the blood and bits, then went into the house to share a bottle of Clare's wine and cook dinner. As we sat at the table in the dooryard of the farmhouse, we toasted each pig and thanked them for their lives and the good food they would provide.

Read the other posts in this series: Roger and Me, Roger Grows Up, Saying Goodbye, The Meat of the Matter and Pasture to Plate.

Thinking of Eating: Saying Goodbye

"You're cruisin' for a bruisin'," were his exact words. I'd been interviewing Portland bartender Dave Shenaut for an article about Portland Cocktail Week, and he asked what I'd been up to lately. I told him about Roger, the pig I was getting from Clare Carver of Big Table Farm, and that I'd wanted to get to know him, to put a name to the food on my table.

I've had other friends express everything from horror to admiration about the idea, but when I went out to Big Table to say a last goodbye to Roger before he was slaughtered, I knew that Mr. Shenaut had hit the nail on the head.

When I went into the pasture he shares with Don, the other pig Clare is raising, Roger drank some of the water we'd just poured into his bowl. Then, while Don slurped away, Roger came over and stood near me so I could scratch his ears and back. Clare had said that he liked his belly rubbed, so when I reached over his back and started scratching his belly, he slowly sank to his knees and rolled over on his side. He closed his eyes, and his piggy mouth turned up as if he was smiling.

As much as I've dreaded and, in an odd way, looked forward to it, this is Roger's last day. At six o'clock this evening, Richard will drive up to Clare's farm and kill Roger and Don, giving them an instant and humane death. I'll be there, as will another family who are taking half of one of the pigs. It's going to be hard, and tomorrow morning we'll butcher the meat, wrap it up and freeze it for what I'm sure will be some amazing meals.

I'll miss you Roger. You were a good pig.

Read the other posts in this series: Roger and Me, Roger Grows Up, The Day Finally Comes, The Meat of the Matter and Pasture to Plate.

Thinking of Eating: Roger Grows Up

I got a call from Clare the other day saying that Don and Roger were growing much faster than she expected and would reach their ideal slaughter weight a couple of weeks before she'd anticipated.

You might remember the last time I went out, the pigs weighed in the neighborhood of 200 pounds. Don has always been the larger of the two, outweighing Roger by ten or so pounds, and he's definitely the more food-oriented. It was obvious when we went out to feed them table scraps and vegetable trimmings—Don went right for their food bowl, while Roger stood and leaned against me, insisting on getting scratches before he joined his brother.

After playing some piggy tag with them, Clare suggested feeding them some of the blackberries from the bushes just outside the pasture. Now, these are big animals, at least three times the size of the biggest dog I've played with. Even Walker has surprised well-meaning guests when they've proferred a treat and in his excitement he's taken their whole hand into his mouth.

But when I offered Roger a juicy blackberry, rather than chomping down, he gently took it from my fingers with his lips and swallowed, grunting appreciatively. After several more he ran off to play with Don, who'd decided that he was through with this dainty exercise and had gone to the grain bucket for some real chow.

While Don was munching away, we gauged his weight by measuring him with string. Yes, you heard me right. You take a five foot or so length of string, put one end between your pig's ears and run it down his back to the base of his tail (illustration, right), then mark it with tape or a knot. Then you measure his girth by putting the string around him just behind his front legs. Measure the marks on the string with a tape measure, use the following formula and you'll get a weight that Clare has found accurate (on pigs…not so much on people or dogs) to within five pounds:

Weight (lbs) = (Length x Girth x Girth) ÷ 400 (inches)

Which put Don at about 285, making Roger's weight around 270, confirming her suspicion that they were going to be ready for slaughter any time in the next couple of weeks.

Not to get off track, but we had a delicious posole verde the other day, made with pork shoulder that had been simmered for several hours till it was fall-apart tender. Served with rice and a cabbage slaw it was fabulous. I no more thought about the pig that shoulder came from than I thought about the plant the tomatillos came from.

Which is where this whole thing gets complicated. I find myself thinking at odd moments about Roger, who's definitely a people-oriented guy, and I'm getting kind of attached to him for just that reason. It's hard thinking he's going to be killed in just a couple of weeks and I'm frankly not looking forward to being there.

Having been through this several times before, Clare says she find it helps to replace the sadness with feelings of gratitude, so I'll be working on that in the coming days. I'll keep you posted.

Read the other posts in this series: Roger and Me, Saying Goodbye, The Day Finally Comes, The Meat of the Matter and Pasture to Plate.