Pig Butchering at Salt Water Farm

On Saturday, November 12th, Salt Water Farm hosted butcher Craig Linke for a pig butchering seminar where he demonstrated how to break down a carcass and create classic recipes.  We started with a 185-pound Tamworth/Large Black hog, raised at David’s Folly Farm in Blue Hill.

Craig covered the basics on equipment, knife skills and where different cuts of pork come from.  He also demonstrated seam butchery and shared techniques and recipes such as  fresh sausage, pancetta, guanciale, rillets and coppa.  The class ended in a lovely meal of jowl bacon and duck egg salad, grits topped with a ham steak and apple cider-braised kielbasa, and a simply roasted apple with fresh cream and maple syrup.

Craig has worked in the livestock processing industry for over 25 years. He has a plan in place for a new, USDA-inspected livestock processing facility in Maine. His dream is to build a business that provides humane, professional animal processing for farms and delivers affordable meats for the state of Maine. Visit his website at http://www.mainestock.com.

We will continue to host butchering classes with Craig:  lamb in the spring and pigs in the fall.

All photos by Irene Yadao.