Image via Complex Original
Heard the phrase, "If you eat the bacon you gotta saw the hog"? Neither has the Jack of All Trades, but it sounds right. Toss the tofu and tell PETA to cover their eyes as the JOAT learns to butcher a pig with help from Tom Mylan, executive butcher and co-owner of the Meat Hook (100 Frost Street) in Brooklyn.
Tom trained with Josh Applestone at Fleisher’s in Kingston, N.Y. (There's also a Brooklyn outpost of the shop in Park Slope.) When he isn't working, Tom teaches classes on his craft at the Brooklyn Kitchen Labs in Williamsburg (100 Frost Street). He's written extensively about meat and sustainable practices for The Atlantic.
Click through for a step-by-step look at pig carving, as well as a video that captures the whole bloody affair.
Step 1: Back-Breaking Work
Wilbur's already lost his head, so Tom instructs me on the first cut: separating the shoulder. I count five ribs down from the top, make a small guide cut, and hack through Wil's spine with a bone saw. Put your weight into the cut like you're throwing a punch, and only cut on the forward stroke or your fatty friend won't be the only one bleeding. Also be careful to stop the saw as soon as you get through the bone or you'll get bone chunks in the meat—not yummy.
Step 2: Butt Shucking
I take up the breaking knife in a pistol or “psycho” grip to complete the cut between the ribs and through the meat, fat, and—gulp—skin. Next is separating the top butt from the bottom butt, except in this case the butts are the shoulder. (In olde English, the butt referred to the widest part of the body, hence the shoulder. Sounds dumb to me, too.) We find where the neck transitions into the shoulder and repeat the bone saw/breaking knife routine. The handle of the knife gets slippery with pig fat, so watch your grip or prepare to have very sad fingers.
Step 3: Getting Ham
Next it’s time to separate the ham from the belly and loin. Tom shows me the seam at the bottom of the belly where the ham comes down and we begin the cut there. By now I’m feeling pretty confident with my Freddy Krueger motion, but after a turn toward the belly, Tom tells me to turn the cut again, and now I’m pulling the knife directly toward my own gut. I step aside ever so slightly, ask Tom to take a look at the angle of my cut, and put him in line for Wilbur’s revenge.
The Whole Bloody Affair
Check out the video above for a complete walk-through—plus, jokes made at the expense of a dead animal!
Step 4: Bacon Country
Time for the main event: as Tom elegantly and deliciously puts it, separating “bacon country” and “pork chop country.” The process is entirely subjective: Look at a cross section of the pig’s remaining torso, identify what looks like a good pork chop, and make the cut from there. (In the picture above, the pork chop is on the right and the bacon is on the left.) Another hack-through-the-bone/slice-through-the-skin, and we’ve officially found pork heaven. Now it’s time to cure everything. And Wilbur? He’s got the same sweet grin he had when
I walked in. What a good sport.
