I took Ryan Farr's whole-pig butchering class at La Cocina (because Ryan Farr is a minority woman?) a couple weeks ago, and it was awesome. The class was $70 (cheap compared to the competition), you get fed as part of the class (some delicious Mexican treats, and Ryan's chicharrones), and you get to take home some meat and bits. Nevertheless, since I got laid off last month from my day job (along with half the other lawyers in the country), I had to convince my sugar mama to let me go. It was definitely worth it.

I got there and signed in, finished off my cappucino from Haus (great new coffee shop on 24th Street with WiFi), put on an apron (provided) and took out my knives (they also provided knives, if you need them). A bunch of cutting boards were set all around a big stainless steel work surface. The pig was already out on the boards. I chose a place at a cutting board, and started chatting with the other people there.

When the class started, everyone introduced himself (and herself) while we all snapped cell phone pictures of Ryan hoisting the pig around. He explained that it was in the neighborhood of 85 pounds (a pretty small pig, as pigs go). It was about the size you'd want for whole-roasting--much smaller than the pigs that provide the meat you see in the grocery store.

The first thing we did was take off the head. Ryan asked if anyone had their heart set on taking it home. No one did, so he offered to roast it for us to eat later in the class. A couple women set about skinning it and taking off the jowels, and then Ryan put it in the oven (I think he said 375F, and it was in for a little over two hours). Then he showed us how to break the pig into the primal cuts, first by counting down the ribs and cutting, and then below the belly, cutting around the ball and socket joints of the hips.

Once we had the pig in several pieces, the people taking the class got to work breaking it down further. Ryan worked the room, walking around to each place and demonstrating what to do next. Then he moved on while someone else finished that task. It was easy to see everything being done while working on whatever hunk of pig you had in front of you. He was great about answering questions, and was just a really friendly guy the whole time. He didn't make anyone feel like an idiot when they asked dumb questions (and there were definitely some dumb questions), or when they screwed up some piece of meat (and there were a lot of ugly pieces that people turned out).

Also, the whole thing was peppered with general butchery tips and standard practices. For instance, he explained that when you are cutting a roast or rack into ribs or chops, you always cut with the knife tight against the right side of the bones (with the concave side of the bones toward you, if applicable). In other words, you push the knife left until you're up against the right side of the bone, then cut down through the roast. That way, all the chops are consistent, and if you get interrupted and have to come back, you never forget where you're at. He also showed us a great way to french racks that I'd never seen (and neither had some of the trained cooks in the class). It was vastly preferable to the scrape-the-bones-like-hell-until-they're-mostly-clean method that I previously understood to be the state of the art. It involved mostly finger work, rather than knife work, and it was much quicker and left the chops much cleaner than the method I've always seen.

As we finished various cuts, he'd show how to trim them up, tie them, or otherwise finish them, and then we'd toss them onto some sheet pans that were set out. We took off the skin and kept that separate, and kept one pan for scraps for stock.

By the end, the whole thing was broken down. Ryan and some of his helpers wrapped everything up in neat little packs while we ate some tasty Mexican food that was apparently from one of the other La Cocina businesses. The salsa rojo was amazing. We also ate chunks off the roasted whole pig's head. That was some tasty stuff, but it was in dire need of salt. However, it was a good thing it wasn't salted, since I ended up taking it home and mostly using it for stock.

Finally, we all gathered our spoils. Some of us wanted roasts rather than chops, and so we got certain packs. For the most part, though, we each just grabbed one of each type of pack: one pack containing some kind of chop and a couple pieces of leg or shoulder, one pack with pieces of belly, one pack of skin, one pack of scraps... two of us took home a pair of feet as well. Finally, Ryan asked if anyone wanted the remains of the head. There was still a bit of meat on it, and there was obviously a ton of cartilage and bone. All of it had some nice browning. No one else wanted it, so of course I took it home. I ended up picking off pieces of meat to munch on for the rest of the evening, and then made a ridiculous pork stock from the whole head (which I eventually used for many dishes, including this one of pork crepinettes, morels, peas, and carrots). I vacuum-sealed most of the other stuff I got and cooked the various parts sous vide for various times and temperatures in order to pasteurize. That way I could hold them in my fridge for up to a month or so. Now I've still got some nice pig dinners to go from this class.

Overall, the meat I took home was definitely not worth $70, but the experience was great, and I'd recommend it to any serious home cook or pro cook. My one complaint is that I would have preferred if we left some of the cuts more complete, instead of portioning them all out. The reason is that we were left taking home, for instance, one pork chop, one piece of this, one piece of that. I would have preferred the whole roasts (or roasts with a couple bones, or larger tied pieces), or at least a few of the same thing, even if it meant I got fewer different cuts. That would have been better for the later cooking. The way it was, we got to learn how to portion everything out, which is probably the right thing for the class, it's just not ideal for actually cooking what we bring home. Still, that's pretty minor. I can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon.

Posted by Barzelay on 2009/06/06 @ 0:50 | Comments (1) | Meat

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