I like to cook. Occasionally. Luckily, I’m good at it. Occasionally. See, with me, cooking is about big things. I usually cook for holiday meals and invite folks over or just make a really big pot of something and… invite folks over. Sometimes, just to change things up, I invite people over and THEN cook something.
The primary problem with my cooking is that I can’t cook for two. Fifteen I can do… two, I can’t. For example, I made a bit of chicken and rice for my wife and me the other night. We’ve eaten three meals out of that batch and still have well over two gallons left. For those that can’t get the visual picture, two gallons is a LOT of chicken and rice. You can, easily, feed 10 people with that, twice, and have left overs. Oh well, at least it’s good.
About twice a year we decide that we want to cook a pig. Now, cooking a pig in and of itself is an event but I can’t leave it at that, oh no. Where most people would rent a big pit grill or dig a hole and bury the thing we (read “I”) prefer to hang the pig in front of the fire. The Brazilians cook beef in a similar way by standing upright “spits” in front of the fire but not me. No, when I cook big there’s often engineering involved. Here’s the first pig that I ever cooked along with Mark (his uncles in the backwoods of Louisiana actually taught us how to do it this way (sans the tripod, they hung it from a tree)).
Yeah, that’s right. In order to hang the pig you need something to hang it FROM. Lacking something to hang it from, I “invented” this contraption**. Three twelve foot poles, a bit of dog chain, a “fence stretcher” from the home store, 4″x4″ square fencing, some bailing wire and you’ve got yourself a $25 pig cooker fit for a kings banquet. On later attempts we extended the back pole to be about 10′ longer than the others. Doing this gives us the ability to turn the front two legs into upright/vertical supports and allows adjustment of the heat by moving this third leg (and thus the pig) back and forth… pretty slick if I do say so myself. There are inefficiencies with the process though. It can take up to four times as long to cook a one hundred pound pig this way. The average cook time is about 12 hours. With a closed grill you can finish the same pig in around three hours. The process requires a LOT of wood. We’ve burned as much as a rick (half a cord) of wood cooking one pig where a similar pig took only four 10 pound bags of charcoal on a grill…. a huge difference.
The bonus with the really slow cook time though is that you get insanely tender meat that (literally) falls off of the bone. The last time we cooked a pig in a grill it took nearly two hours of “picking” to get the meat separated from the bone and chopped. With a slow roasted tripod cooked pig you simply cut the wire loose and pull the bones free. There’s no cutting or trimming… nothing. Just tug on a bone and it falls out leaving a pile of steaming pork.
Those are for special occasions though. Usually, it’s just a round meal of simple fare. I’m not big on having “courses” with our meals. In fact, if there’s to be anything to eat other than the one or two dishes that I make for a meal then somebody better get a pot. I’m not above serving a platter of roast pork with nothing else. My wife (and anyone else that’s sane) enjoys a nice round meal. I can sometimes get away with it by doing a “one pot wonder” like Gumbo but most of the time my wife gets stuck with making the sides.
People are often very complimentary of my dishes and then upset that I won’t tell them how I did it. They fail to understand that this is usually because I “cheated” in some way. For instance, I make a roast pork tenderloin in mushroom cream sauce with just a hint of onion that is (I’ve been told) divine. People taste it and MUST have the recipe. I’ve considered writing up a very complex set of recipes and then, when things don’t turn out for them, just nod sadly and say, “yeah, it’s hard but it took me many years to perfect that… keep trying.” In truth the roast pork is pretty much just that. Here are all of the ingredients: Pork Loin (obviously), Two cans of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, One packet of Lipton Onion soup mix and… err… that’s it. The instructions are a little more complex: Dump the soup on top of the pork. Sprinkle the soup mix over it, smear it all around and wrap the whole thing in foil. Bake at 275 for 3 hours while you wander around the kitchen banging pans together for good effect. Once it’s done, dump the whole mess into a casserole serving dish and present it carefully to the table. All of my dishes tend to be like this. When people rave over the chicken soup and ask what’s in it I can just evasively say, “chicken soup” without ever mentioning the fine folks over at Campbell’s.
The one exception to this is my Banana Pudding which is made according to the “OLD” Nabisco recipe which was made from scratch. Hours of slowing stirring real cream over a double boiler and then carefully layering the bananas with nilla wafers and pudding and then topping it with home made meringue makes a real difference in the taste. People often smirk at all of the work that goes into it and then later exclaim that ones they make with instant pudding aren’t nearly as good. I just nod sadly and say, “yeah, it’s hard but it took me many years to perfect that… keep trying.”
Here’s one more picture. The pig isn’t really burned… it’s just wierd lighting:
** Yes, it’s really hard to claim that you’re the inventor of the tripod and get away with it… I did
Pingback:Pig Roast Pics « jinksto
I like this method for cooking pig. Acutally i am planning a backwoods cook as well, feeding about 200 people, and i made a big bbq stall last year, i would like to make a rotate stall for cooking, any ideas for me, if you like i can share some photo with you too. cheers! irene
I really liked the pig cookout story and photos. Is that you by the fire smoking? Anyway fun stuff. Also would like to thank you for the redneck wine recipe which is how I came across you in the first place as I just did a search for redneck after making a batch yesterday. A friend, I’ll call him Chuck, gave me his version of redneck wine that he apparently got from his early life in Texas called ‘redneck wine’ made with watermelon. It goes like this: Watermelon peeled and cut up, 5 lbs. cane sugar 3 or 4 packets yeast( I put in 5 on the theory that more is better?), put in bucket and let bubble til it stops. So I have a clean 6 gallon bucket, white plastic with good lid that used to have peeled raw potatoes in it. I basically mashed up the water melon added some very ripe pears (4) and some chopped fresh mint because it sounded like a good combination. So, knowing that it would be producing a lot of bubbles I put the lid on real tight except for the last couple of inches that I left just on but not over the ridge but because the rest of the lid is over the ridge it presses this part tight and makes a light seal. It makes an air tight seal that will let out the gas and not let anything else in. Also I have been ‘burping it’ . I haven’t stirred it yet, it is hard to get the lid off and back on. Really tight fit, arthritic hands. This does run on but thanks again for your version.
That should actually work fine. As long as there’s no air getting in and it’s loose enough that it doesn’t explode. 🙂
With Yeast, more isn’t necessarily better. A single packet of yeast will do everything that you need. Just start it in warm water like you would for bread and it’ll be off and running in no time. On the other hand, I’m not sure that you can add too much either.
Let me know how it comes out!
Also, if you haven’t seen it you should check out my post on The Alaskan Bootleggers Bible… great book for doing it the “easy” way.
http://jinksto.com/blog/?p=472
Hi Irene, sorry that I missed your post a few weeks ago. I’d love to see pictures of your setup! Drop me a mail at jinksto@gmail.com
I’m looking for a decent rotisserie that’ll handle large portions as well. If you find something let me know!
Hi Jinks,
Probably not the first time you have heard that but I mostly amuse me anyway.
So the continuation of the wine: The bucket did work and I came out with a really pretty pink wine that had an amazing kick, no hygrometer but I am sure it had more alcohol than most wine, judging by the effects times how many glasses were consumed.
The only thing that more yeast did as far as I can tell is that fermentation time seemed pretty fast to me about 4 days and an extra evening as I put it up about 4pm or so and there is a lot of sediment which I probably just didn’t use the right size filter. I am also trying to make one bottle for which I am using a sturdy former soda bottle with a good tight lid, into a carbonated version by the expedient of after bottling adding an extra spoonfull of sugar and a small amount of yeast (pinch?) then sealing it. It feels very tight already but I am practicing Zenlike patience…
Health, Happiness, Luck
JT-
Sounds great. A few notes for you:
The sediment is from the yeast dying and really can’t all be filtered anyway. You just need to let it settle and then siphon the wine off of the leavings. This sometimes has to be done several times so you’re probably right on track with what you did. Depending on the wine it can take months for everything to settle out.
Careful with that soda bottle. Creating carbonated or sparkling wine is a touchy business that can result in a huge mess or, worse, someone getting hurt. The bottle WILL explode and CAN hurt people when it does. You might want to crack the lid occasionally to release some of the pressure. Just be careful with it. 🙂