Does Your Pork Have a Name?

I have always bought meat from the grocery store.  My wife and I are not very good at pre-planning and so it's always been convenient, as we are standing in the grocery store trying to figure out what to cook for dinner, to pick out something from the meat department.  Even when we decide to do barbecue or ribs, which takes a bit more time and planning, that decision is usually made while we are already at the grocery store.  And for the most part, I have been satisfied with the quality of the meat.  But I am here to tell you, I have just recently discovered another world of pork I never knew existed.

A good friend of mine is in the food distribution business and is a fantastic cook, so when we get together for dinner, the food is always over-the-top amazing.  A while back he mentioned that he had gotten, as he put it, "some high end, fancy pork" and he wanted to have us over for dinner.  He smoked a pork butt, his wife made some stupid good coleslaw and I brought over my smoked hobo beans.  As soon as I took a bite of the barbecue (no sauce of course) I could taste something different.  The flavor of the meat was rich and almost nutty and the fat was smooth and buttery.  I immediately wanted to know more about this "high end, fancy pork."  He explained that it was a Duroc hog, one of the heritage breeds.  He mentioned the names of a few more of the heritage breeds and explained a little about what a heritage breed hog was, and then the conversation moved on to laughing about the chicken named Collin from the show Portlandia.  

Berkshire hogs are the oldest of the heritage breeds.  

But I needed to know more about heritage breed hogs so as soon as we got home, I hit up the internet and began reading just about all there is to know about these unique hogs.  Turns out, there are a number of different pure breed hogs, each with distinct characteristics.  A few of the heritage breeds include Berkshire, Mulefoot, Tamworth, Large Black, Hereford, Poland China, Chester White, Duroc, Hampshire, and Yorkshire.  There is even a breed, the Ossabaw hog, that is unique to the Georgia island of the same name.  Many of these breeds are considered a threatened species and so they can be hard to find.  Many tend to be smaller than grocery store hogs because they are raised on a natural diet with no hormones and never see the inside of a gestation crate.  Instead, they are free range hogs that live a stress-free life, making their meat all the better.  Their fat tends to be smooth and buttery when rendered and their meat is a much deeper red than the pale pink of grocery store meat, offering a flavor that is hard to beat.

My local butcher has Chester White hogs raised in NC.

The next day I paid a visit to my local butcher to ask about the pork that he had available.  He explained that his pork comes from a farm in North Carolina where they raise Chester White hogs.  Since then I have smoked five racks of baby backs and two pork butts and it truly has been the best ribs and barbecue I have ever done.  The price is only about a dollar a pound more and it is well worth it.  So from now on, there will be no grocery store swine for me.  The only pork to see the inside of my cooker is pork I can call by name!