I don’t know if I can take any more pictures of suffering pigs so I’m posting a photograph I took in the weekend – a photo of some very happy pigs.
Pigs at Ti Kouka Farm, Waimarama
These pigs live in a grassy field on an organic farm in Hawke’s Bay. They are fed on organic vegetable scraps and their troughs are filled with whey from the Hohepa dairy in Clive. They are organic, free range, locavore pigs and they make great bacon but they are expensive to raise and the pork they produce is not to everyone’s taste.
We are used to eating flesh from animals that have been raised inside in warm barns with not a lot of room to move. Their sedentary lifestyle produces soft pork – not terribly tasty but certainly more tender than animals that are free to root and roam.
The farmer who raises the pigs in my photo turns them into bacon and ham. The meat that’s not brined and cured tastes great too but it has to be cooked much more slowly than the flash-in-the pan cuts you buy in the supermarket. Truly free-range pork has a texture that’s more like wild pork. In fact it’s more like the pork people used to eat before farming became so intensive.
Which means if we really want to change the way people farm pigs, we have to change our expectations of what pork should be. Fat or happy? It’s a tough one.
Here’s a question I just thought of. Does anyone ever make pig cheese? Never hear of it do you, but they’re just another lactating animal like cows, sheep and goats so why not? I should imagine pig milk would be beautifully rich and succulent, and make a great soft cheese. Camempork.
I suspect pigs are a bit too close to the ground to milk, Phil. On the other hand, I seem to remember reading something about mouse cheese – or was I dreaming? Anyone?