Post by Christine on Aug 14, 2008 9:05:04 GMT -5
Gone to market
Pig No. 9251 becomes prime pork in home and restaurant kitchens
By Andrea Weigl, Staff WriterComment on this story
May 28 is hog-killing day.
The pig that we've followed for 10 months to understand where our food comes from is headed to a family-owned packing plant in Matkins, north of Burlington.
We chose a pig because North Carolina is home to the world's largest pork-processing plant, Smithfield Packing Company's operation in Tar Heel. But our pig was going to Matkins.
Matkins Meats Inc. was started by Jerry Matkins' father, Leonard, in 1956. It is the opposite in scale to Smithfield, but Jerry Matkins hopes to become the go-to meat packer for farmers, like Eliza MacLean, who sell their meat at local farmers markets.
On this day, Matkins staff will kill three pigs for MacLean. Smithfield kills between 28,000 and 32,000 pigs each day.
MacLean's business partner, Charles Sydnor, backs up the trailer to the barn where the hog that has become known as the N&O pig and two others are waiting. Sydnor herds them toward the trailer.
"OK, dilly bobs," Sydnor says. "Come on, piggy wiggleys."
With a loud crack, the N&O pig charges a metal gate trying to get away. Sydnor chastises him: "You got to ... get up there."
Within minutes, the pigs are safely in the trailer and MacLean drives down the road toward the Matkins plant. Along the way, MacLean explains how the pigs will be killed. It will be a bullet to the head from a .22 rifle.
"I like that," she says. "That's what they actually do on a farm."
MacLean's farm and Matkins Meats are certified by the Animal Welfare Institute. The nonprofit aims "to reduce the sum total of pain and fear inflicted on animals by people." The group inspects not only farms for how the animals are raised but the packing plants to see how the animals are slaughtered. It also prohibits hog lagoons.
MacLean says Matkins employee Larry Herring has been shooting pigs for decades and is a very steady shot. "The pigs don't know it's coming," she says.
If the animals get agitated, their adrenaline spikes and their muscles are flushed with lactic acid, which MacLean says produces leaky, pale meat -- not what she wants to sell to her customers.
A half-hour later, MacLean pulls the truck into the Matkins parking lot. Men wearing blood-spattered white smocks direct her as she backs up the trailer.
The three pigs are released into a chute that guides them into the building and directly into what is called a "knocking box." The knocking box is a tall concrete box with an entrance from the outside, a gate across the front and stairs running up the side of it.
At the top of the stairs, two rifles are mounted on the wall. The floor is streaked with blood. This is the animals' first step onto the kill floor.
"Bye N&O pig, love you," MacLean calls before driving away.
The kill floor has concrete walls and floor. An overhead stainless steel track moves dead pigs from the kill floor into the coolers. The workers wear hats, yellow plastic aprons and chains around their waists for honing steels and metal scabbards for their knives.
Herring pulls a rifle off the wall and loads it. He leans over the side of the knocking box and brings the muzzle inches from a pig's head.
Blam!
Down goes the first pig.
Herring can't get a clean shot at the second pig, so he walks around to the front of the knocking box.
Blam!
He shoots the N&O pig straight on through the front gate. Then he walks back up the stairs and shoots the third pig. Blood pours out of the wounds and the animals twitch on the floor.
Herring wraps a chain around the right back leg of the N&O pig and lifts him off the floor. He slices the jugular vein and then he cuts off its head.
The body is laid out on its back on top of two metal rails. With boning knives, the men cut off the pig's feet. Herring uses a handsaw to cut the sternum. He ties an identification tag onto the carcass.
The pig's skin is pulled off the back, the internal organs are cut out, the carcass is sawed in half. What was a living animal a few minutes ago is now closer to what you see in a grocery store meat case.
The carcass is weighed: 173 pounds. The N&O pig, now No. 9251, is moved into the cooler.
Less than a week later, Jerry Matkins is working with his employees breaking down MacLean's pigs.
"Bill, bring 51 out," he instructs an employee. The pig carcass lands on the stainless steel table with a thud.
Matkins and his men use saws to cut through the rib cage. Wielding boning knives, they trim fat off the legs, cut out the spareribs and bellies and carve the bone out of the ham.
Within 13 minutes, they have loaded gray plastic tubs with 14 pork chops, two racks of ribs, four shanks, two pork bellies (bacon), two picnics (shoulder parts), two Boston butts, a pile of ham steaks, a plastic bag filled with neck bones and 28 pounds of trimmings for sausage that is made into 30 one-pound bags of chorizo.
The picnics end up at The Carolina Inn made into pork shoulder confit. The shanks go to Six Plates Wine Bar, where they are braised with pineapple juice. The bellies go to Il Palio, where chef Adam Rose makes bacon out of it for carbonara.
On to the Farmers' Market
On a Wednesday in June, MacLean sells the pork chops and ham steaks from the N&O pig at the farmers market. One of her regular customers is John O'Sullivan, a marketing specialist with the N.C. Cooperative Extension who works with local farmers.
MacLean tells O'Sullivan they have great pork chops that day. O'Sullivan buys four.
"Should I marinate them first?" he asks.
"A little salt and pepper and four minutes on each side," MacLean says.
Four days later on a Sunday night, O'Sullivan fires up the charcoal grill outside his Chapel Hill home. The pork chops will be served with corn on the cob, green salad, his mother's potato salad, bread and homemade applesauce.
Between swigs of a St. Pauli Girl nonalcoholic beer, O'Sullivan puts the chops on the grill and watches them carefully.
"It's a fine line with these guys because you don't want them to burn," he says. He uses his cell phone to time each side at four minutes.
At the dinner table, O'Sullivan, his wife, Rita, and brother-in-law Danny dig in. The chops have a blushing interior.
"These are cooked perfect," she says. "I've gotten to the point where I don't buy pork chops at the Harris Teeter anymore because they aren't as rich."
"The flavor is almost deeper," John O'Sullivan adds.
For the O'Sullivans, meat choices come down to taste. They buy most of their meat at Whole Foods and Weaver Street markets because they say the meat tastes better. They'll go to Harris Teeter for their ground beef.
When they buy from local farmers, John O'Sullivan says it is for a celebration, like a heritage breed turkey for Thanksgiving or pastrami from Neal's Deli for his birthday.
The cost of conscience
This is the dilemma for most people: Those local pasture-raised porkchops cost $9.99 a pound. By comparison, pork chops on sale recently at Harris Teeter cost $2.99 a pound.
Supporting small-scale farmers can be an expensive proposition. Even at those prices, MacLean and Sydnor have yet to turn a profit.
Those who want to support local farmers and the area's flourishing farmers markets are already struggling with rising grocery store prices. At least buying vegetables in season at the farmers markets can be cheaper, but meat eaters aren't that lucky.
Carnivorous consumers are caught between conscience and pocketbook.
andrea.weigl@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4848
