Category: Meishan Pork

Kunekune pork- the other red meat. Old fashioned pork, with rich flavor, creamy & firm fat quality and taste beyond compare.

Kunekune Pork Osso Buco with Chanterelles, Polenta and Gremolata 

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An easy & flavorful interpretation of the Northern Italian classic, featuring pork shank instead of veal.

One large pork shank, skin removed.

Salt & pepper shank, dredge in flour and brown on all sides in olive oil, set to side.

Add 2 minced cloves of garlic, one carrot, one stick celery and one onion, diced- to olive oil, add salt, cook until transparent.

Add one cup dry white wine and 1 tablespoon of tomato paste, stir well and reduce liquid by half over low heat.

Add pork shank back in, add one cup chicken broth, cover and cook on low until meat is falling off the bone- this time ranges based on size of shank.

Sautee chanterelles in olive oil.

Prepare polenta.

Plate and serve!

Gremolata is a finely diced parsley, garlic & lemon zest added as a final step.

Buon appetito!

Praise the Lard!

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Lard. The word itself often evokes a visceral reaction. Known as “saindoux” in French, “strutto” in Italian, “schmalz” in German, “manteca” in Spanish, and “laridum” in Latin, the word’s etymological source… lard is often used as both a negative connotation and an insult.

Did you ever wonder why most people today see lard as something disgusting and unpalatable? One hundred years ago, lard was found in every home, not only as a primary cooking & baking fat, but also in personal care products and candles. It was also used industrially as a machining lubricant.

Lard fell out of favor in the early 1900’s and is slowly but surely making a comeback. So how did lard fall from grace? It was essentially, a carefully planned corporate coup.

First, there was Upton Sinclair, whose novel “The Jungle” painted an unseemly portrait of meat packing in general, and the fact that the fictional work portrayed men falling into boiling lard rendering vats. Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose the appalling working conditions in the meat-packing industry. His description of the working conditions and meat itself shocked the public and led to new federal food safety laws.

Next? Crisco. Proctor & Gamble created Crisco in 1910, the hydrogenated vegetable oil that looks like lard. It’s sole purpose was to replace lard in every American kitchen and utilize the cottonseed oil production chain formerly used to create candles. With the invention of the light bulb, candle production waned. Excess oil needed a use- and that use was hydrogenated vegetable oil. Proctor & Gamble led the one of the most expansive food advertising campaigns ever, to boost Crisco while demonizing lard. They gave it away for free, produced cookbooks and ran advertisements that claimed it was more digestible and healthier than lard. Lard wasn’t completely out of the picture, but it’s use was no longer dominant.

Then, in the 1950’s scientists joined in nay-saying lard, with medical claims that saturated fats, such as those found in lard, caused heart disease. Turns out… they were ALL wrong. And it’s actually Crisco and highly processed vegetable oils and hydrogenation that is what’s unhealthy.

Fast forward to the present, where we see lard becoming more accepted and even welcomed- by local food, farm to table movements, pastured livestock farming, and nose-to-tail utilization of humanely raised animals.

To make things more complicated, all pigs are not created equal. There are “lard breeds” and there are “bacon breeds”. Lard breeds are your old fashioned type of pigs, which fatten easily and produced copious amounts of fine-grained, buttery, firm and delicious lard. Lard breeds are compact and thick, with deep bodies and short legs. They include swine such as Kunekune, Meishan, American Guinea Hog, Ossabaw, Mangalitsa, and Potbelly. Bacon breeds are your commercial meat producers. They are lean, long and muscular and include breeds such as Tamworth, Duroc, Hereford, Yorkshire and Modern Berkshire. Some breeds have a little bit of both! These include English Berkshire, Gloucester Old Spots, Large Black, Red Wattle, and Mulefoot, to name a few. Most pastured pork producers utilize cross-breeds of various bacon-type breeds. Very few use lard breeds because they are smaller, and can take 3-4 times longer to grow out to a smaller weight, at that. Combined with the higher amount of fat on their carcass, they are frequently shunned by pastured pork farmers. We go against the grain by working exclusively with lard breeds. Why? Taste. There is nothing quite like the taste of slow-grown, intricately marbled meat from a lard pig. And the fat quality is unrivaled. All of the lard pig breeds other than potbelly pigs (typically seen as pets) are seen as rare and in some cases, critically or globally endangered. This makes a farmer’s work with them both valuable and important- a form of breed conservation through utilization. Breed the best, eat the rest!

Here’s an example between an old fashioned (English) Berkshire boar, and a modernized American one- selectively bred for fast growth and meat production. The English type is more of a lard type.

But back to lard… the lard you find in the modern grocery store is hydrogenated and shelf stable. Don’t buy this- it isn’t even remotely the same type of product you’d get from small farmers raising swine on pasture and in forest land. Pigs raised outdoor with natural forage, grasses, and a potentially omnivorous diet (pigs can and do eat snakes, amphibians, insects, and more!) produce fats with a much healthier lipid profile, as well as more vitamin D. Better than butter? We sure think so! Lard is lower in saturated fat than other animal fats like butter and tallow, and higher in heart-healthy monounsaturated fat—the type that gives olive oil its popularity. Lard has a high smoke point, making it a choice cooking and frying oil. And it’s one of the best fats to use in baking, especially biscuits or pie crusts!

We offer lard in several ways. At this time, we don’t offer plain, rendered lard. We do offer leaf lard (the internal fat), and back fat (the layer of fat found on the back and partway down the sides). Lard is very easy to render at home, store in the refrigerator or freezer, and utilize as a cooking fat. Southern cuisine is well-known for incorporating “salted fatback”, which is a salt-cured form of the fatback, usually offered sliced. We carry this as well. But our most unique and delicious product utilizing the creamy & pristine fat from our rare breed pigs is our Whipped Lardo, also known as “Crema di Lardo”.

The first time I experienced this was while traveling in central Italy. Umbria, to be exact- during wild boar season. Connor and I ate many dishes with “cinghiale”, and at one point experienced whipped lardo made with leaf fat combined with herbs & spices, vinegar and garlic. It was heaven!

Photo by The Farmacy Easley

Whipped Lardo can be used wherever you use cooking oils, fats or butter, and it incorporates both your cooking fat and your seasoning! We currently offer it in five different varieties: Rosemary & Garlic, Red Pepper & Fennel, WIldflower Honey & Sea Salt, Italian Herb, and Herbes de Provence. We are one of only a few farms in the entire United States that is producing Whipped Lardo for resale, and at this time- the only farm in South Carolina! Our rare breed lard pigs are exceptionally well-suited to producing the type of premium fat that is utilized in the lardo. In Italy, historically lardy breeds, often acorn-finished- are utilized as well.

We also utilize our lard in personal care products, such as handcrafted lard soaps, salves and balms. Our aim is to fully utilize the whole hog, and the fat is where it’s at! A portion of the hog that many modern-day producers simply end up discarding, for us- is an extremely important product that we choose to utilize and elevate!

Some more interesting reading about lard:

https://www.thedailymeal.com/healthy-eating/5-reasons-why-lard-new-coconut-oil

http://www.asiaone.com/health/pork-fat-ranked-among-top-10-most-nutritious-foods-report

https://www.prevention.com/food-nutrition/a20488068/should-you-be-eating-lard/

 

 

Sticky sesame riblets with spring onions

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Something tasty is marinating!

Sticky ginger sesame ribs from our rare breed heritage pigs & riblets is what’s for dinner! We’re pairing them with a farm-grown romaine salad with a sesame dressing. Our ribs and riblets are smaller in size, so they are easy to thaw, marinate and prepare. How do you like your ribs?

Update- these ribs were a hit. For some reason, our customer demographic doesn’t purchase riblets, so we’re always looking for great recipes to prepare them with. I think if more people knew how delicious they were, they’d fly out of the freezer quite fast!

Get the recipe HERE.

Pork steaks marinated in honey/yogurt/garlic/turmeric glaze, with beet & snow pea salad

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Part of a modern farmer’s job is showing you delicious, seasonal things that you can cook with our products!

I love to cook and wish I could cook like this every day. Alas, my days are usually much more simple and speedy fare with the hectic schedule that we keep.

This is a fresh Meishan ham steak (fresh, not cured thin sliced pork steak) marinated overnight in a yogurt/honey/garlic/turmeric mixture and pan-seared about 3 minutes per side. If this were supermarket pork, you’d says “gosh, that’s raw!” But this is heritage pork, that starts off as red as beef… so the finished color is also pink, not white. This is just my preference for cooking, I consider this to be “medium”.

We fixed this over jasmine rice, with a chilled beet and snow pea salad over the top, using Chioggia and golden beets from the garden, green onion, and snow peas. It was delicious!

If you’d like snow peas or beets to pick up at the Saturday market, send me a PM. I’ll be custom-harvesting beets for customers who’d like to purchase, because my beet harvest is limited.

Get the recipe HERE.

Deep red color!

Put [rare breed heritage pork] on your fork! How our pork differs from “supermarket” pork

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Market season has begun, and with it we continue our work ardently educating our customers about our breed conservation efforts and how our pork is different. This is our greatest challenge, as people are so used to seeing pork as a cheap, white, readily available meat. We are going against the grain, and it’s not easy to change mindsets.

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 In the South, it’s not uncommon for even small farmers to raise pigs in confinement, on concrete- or in a small pen. Some folks are always surprised that our pigs are free ranging, or that they are smaller in size, or that we don’t sell “whole hog sausage” for $3/lb. We live in a society where meat is seen as a cheap commodity, while vegetables are seen as a luxury. Most customers will readily spend $4-5 per pound for fresh broccoli, but balk at spending $12/lb for a beautiful & marbled nutrient-rich pork chop that took 12-18 months and a whole lot of hard work, love and dedication to produce.
 .
The reason for this is that we are trained to expect meat to be cheap. And factory farms pump out millions of animals per year to meet that cheap, government subsidized demand. What most consumers don’t understand is that the vast majority of large-scale agriculture, from corn & wheat to pork & beef out of confinement buildings and feed lots- is government subsidized. You do pay more for that meat, you just don’t realize where your tax dollars are going. Factory farms unfortunately are necessary to meet demand, but as consumers we always have the choice to take our buying power where we wish, and keeping dollars local and invested in small farms is the smart choice for sustainability and our local economy!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 Our pork is a premium product, that you won’t find at any grocery store and you may not even be able to find a product like it at most farmer’s markets. It is unusual for a small farm to be centered solely around rare breed conservation and working with smaller pigs with long growout times and smaller meat yields- but here we are, doing just that.
 .
The topic of confinement pork- what almost all “supermarket pork” is, always comes up at the farmers market. Factory farmed pork consists of thousands of pigs being raised indoors, in an enclosed space. There is no comparison between this and what pastured farmers do!
 .
In our case, we also factor in the unique meat and fat quality of our rare breed pigs. Both the Kunekune and Meishan pigs produce intricately marbled meat- the equivalent of being the “Waygu beef of the pork world”.
.
How are our pigs different?
.
  • Unlike supermarket pork, our pigs are bred for taste rather than leanness. They are an old fashioned style pig, known as a “lard breed”.
  • Our pork is different by sight alone- the deep red color is both inherent to the breed’s genetics, as well as the slow, outdoor rearing.
  • Pigs reared outdoors, and raised slowly (12-18 months) results in excellent marbling and intramuscular fat, creating incredibly tender pork.
  • Slow growth means a tastier product.
  • Our are happy pigs, and happy pigs taste better. We’d never consider raising pigs in a tiny pen, indoors, or on concrete. Ours are reared outside, free ranging on pasture and in the forest. Piglets stay with their mothers until 6-10 weeks of age depending on breed, litter size, and sow condition.
  • Kunekune and Meishan pigs are bred by a few select breeders who prioritize the breed’s purity, conformation and traceability via pedigreed registration.
  • In buying rare breed pork, you are helping to create demand for rare breeds in need of conservation, which in turn will encourage breeders to continue working with these amazing animals to meet demand for both breeding stock and meat stock!
  • In short, every bite of our pork helps to conserve the breeds we work with. It makes it possible for us to continue our work, manage the intricacies of our breeding program, and do our best work possible.
. 
Thank you for putting rare breed heritage pork on your fork!
Kunekune pork- the other red meat. Old fashioned pork, with rich flavor, creamy & firm fat quality and taste beyond compare.

How our Pork is Different!

Leave a comment

Market season has begun, and with it we continue our work ardently educating our customers about our breed conservation efforts and how our pork is different. This is our greatest challenge, as people are so used to seeing pork as a cheap, white, readily available meat. We are going against the grain, and it’s not easy to change mindsets.

Deep red color!
Fat quality is firm, buttery and healthy for you.
Incredible intramuscular fat and micro-marbling
 In the South, it’s not uncommon for even small farmers to raise pigs in confinement, on concrete- or in a small pen. Some folks are always surprised that our pigs are free ranging, or that they are smaller in size, or that we don’t sell “whole hog sausage” for $3/lb. We live in a society where meat is seen as a cheap commodity, while vegetables are seen as a luxury. Most customers will readily spend $4-5 per pound for fresh broccoli, but balk at spending $12/lb for a beautiful & marbled nutrient-rich pork chop that took 12-18 months and a whole lot of hard work, love and dedication to produce.
 .
The reason for this is that we are trained to expect meat to be cheap. And factory farms pump out millions of animals per year to meet that cheap, government subsidized demand. What most consumers don’t understand is that the vast majority of large-scale agriculture, from corn & wheat to pork & beef out of confinement buildings and feed lots- is government subsidized. You do pay more for that meat, you just don’t realize where your tax dollars are going. Factory farms unfortunately are necessary to meet demand, but as consumers we always have the choice to take our buying power where we wish, and keeping dollars local and invested in small farms is the smart choice for sustainability and our local economy!
 Our pork is a premium product, that you won’t find at any grocery store and you may not even be able to find a product like it at most farmer’s markets. It is unusual for a small farm to be centered solely around rare breed conservation and working with smaller pigs with long growout times and smaller meat yields- but here we are, doing just that.
 .
The topic of confinement pork- what almost all “supermarket pork” is, always comes up at the farmers market. Factory farmed pork consists of thousands of pigs being raised indoors, in an enclosed space. There is no comparison between this and what pastured farmers do!
 .
In our case, we also factor in the unique meat and fat quality of our rare breed pigs. Both the Kunekune and Meishan pigs produce intricately marbled meat- the equivalent of being the “Waygu beef of the pork world”.
.
How are our pigs different?
.
  • Unlike supermarket pork, our pigs are bred for taste rather than leanness. They are an old fashioned style pig, known as a “lard breed”.
  • Our pork is different by sight alone- the deep red color is both inherent to the breed’s genetics, as well as the slow, outdoor rearing.
  • Pigs reared outdoors, and raised slowly (12-18 months) results in excellent marbling and intramuscular fat, creating incredibly tender pork.
  • Slow growth means a tastier product.
  • Our are happy pigs, and happy pigs taste better. We’d never consider raising pigs in a tiny pen, indoors, or on concrete. Ours are reared outside, free ranging on pasture and in the forest. Piglets stay with their mothers until 6-10 weeks of age depending on breed, litter size, and sow condition.
  • Kunekune and Meishan pigs are bred by a few select breeders who prioritize the breed’s purity, conformation and traceability via pedigreed registration.
  • In buying rare breed pork, you are helping to create demand for rare breeds in need of conservation, which in turn will encourage breeders to continue working with these amazing animals to meet demand for both breeding stock and meat stock!
  • In short, every bite of our pork helps to conserve the breeds we work with. It makes it possible for us to continue our work, manage the intricacies of our breeding program, and do our best work possible.
. 
Thank you for putting rare breed heritage pork on your fork!

 

Take a Bite out of History with Rare Breed Heritage Pork

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A different kind of pig, a different kind of pork! We raise two rare, heritage breeds of swine at Corva Bella. The Kunekune pig (a New Zealand heritage breed, originally kept by the Maori people), and the Meishan pig (a globally threatened Chinese heritage breed with a rich historical legacy). Both Kunekune and Meishan are slow growing, heritage pigs that are efficient on pasture and are fed a varied diet of pasture, hay, fermented grains, windfall fruit and nuts, milk, eggs, beets, pumpkins, sunflowers, sweet potatoes, barley fodder, and garden bounty. We believe in “slow meat” and are part of the #SlowFood movement. Our pigs are sustainably and kindly raised on our small permaculture farm in Upstate SC. Our feeding regimen includes no added hormones or antibiotics.

Breed conservation is a major part of our work, and breed utilization guarantees the ongoing sucess of the breeds we champion! Our delicious and tender pork is a fortunate “side effect” of our conservation breeding programs, where only the best animals continue forward as breeding stock for future generations, while those who aren’t as exceptional or conforming to breed standards, are kept for meat. In the words of The Livestock Conservancy, “Breed the Best, Eat the Rest”.

Ours is a uniquely different approach to small-scale pork production, sustainably based on the future health and success of our beloved breeds. We believe in happy and stress-free pigs. All of our pigs freely roam in pasture and forest areas, where they graze, forage, nap in the sun, wallow in the mud, and sleep in warm and dry pig houses at night. Our herd is protected by a team of Karakachan livestock guardian dogs, Vladimir and Valeska.

PORK… THE OTHER RED MEAT!

Both Meishans and Kunekunes are old fashioned type pigs, which results in a more red, marbled meat and firm, flavorful, creamy fat. Our pork has a rich and complex taste profile, that some describe as being halfway between pork and beef. We recommend cooking low and slow. The Meishan pig is a delicacy in China and Japan and both pigs have been featured at Cochon 555! Some chefs describe the pork as being the “Kobe beef of pork”.

Naturally-reared heritage breed pork is worlds apart from regular grocery store pork, which is a product of factory farming. Animals in confinement are fed primarily corn and soy, as well as “empty” calories, such as production leftovers from bread/cereal/bakery factories. The result is a pale and lifeless pork that cooks up dry and bland. We won’t even comment on the sad lives confinement animals live, sometimes never seeing sunshine or feeling grass under their hooves.

Feeding our Pigs for health, happiness, progeny and future flavor!

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When you think of what pigs eat, most people envision long troughs full of slop. From my early childhood memories of one of my favorite books, “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White, Wilbur was fed buckets of slop (often depicted pictorially in a rather gross manner) and his pen attracted a rat named Templeton, who also sorted through the slop. I never imagined that pigs ate grass, or hay. Most of the time we see pigs in muddy pens, being fed in a trough, after all. Or we see them in confinement farms, indoors in artificial environments.

The truth is that pigs love to graze pasture and eat the leaves off low-hanging tree branches. They eat various types of hay, and just about any type of fresh produce. After a good soaking rain, they’ll root for grubs and bugs, or eat the starchy roots of various plants. In a forest environment, they do the same- constantly seeking out nuts and insects.

At Corva Bella, our goal is to have happy, healthy and eventually, delicious pigs. We feed a widely varied diet to achieve all of these goals. We are set up for rotational grazing in both open pasture, silvopasture, and wooded pastures. Our gardens produce a variety of fresh vegetables and greens all year round, and we grow trays of barley fodder in the greenhouse when temperatures are cold, and outdoors when temperatures are stable. The pigs also love eggs, moderate amounts of yogurt and outdated milk, and whey.

Last Fall into Winter, the pigs enjoyed large amounts of apples, melons, pumpkins and sweet potatoes, along with box after box of acorns, beech and hickory nuts we gathered on our property and from neighbors. We also ferment a 14% and 16% locally milled grower feed with added milk to create a mash with increased nutrition and healthy probiotics- this is the bulk of their diet.

The Kunekune and Meishan pigs are unique heritage breeds in that they evolved very close to people. The Kunekune pigs with the Maori tribes of New Zealand, and the Meishan pigs in close quarters with the Chinese of the Taihu Lakes region of China. Pigs are excellent foragers and are very adaptable to their environment. Part of our goal as a permaculture-based sustainable small farm is to create an environment in which everything we plant and grow has a purpose towards sustaining our animals, our selves, and our emerging market farm/CSA offerings.

Spring is just around the corner and we’re already planning what the pigs are going to be eating into the Fall and Winter. This Summer, the pigs will be primarily pasturing, eating produce and hay, and the hopefully, banana leaves. We are planting numerous banana trees in a carefully chosen area and hope that this food source holds true in it’s claimed production. Our climate doesn’t produce fruiting bananas, but the leaves should be plentiful. We planted 25 apple and pear trees last year and will be planting more this year in hopes of one day having plentiful fall apples for the pigs. In the meantime, we’ll visit local orchards to pick up their fallen apples and help clean their orchard floor, while providing a food our pigs love!

Did you know pigs love sunflowers, and will eat the entire head? I learned this last year when I watched a sow stand on her back legs to reach and pull down a sunflower that had dipped into her paddock. Sunflowers are easy to grow and grow very well in our region. We’re planning to devote an entire area of the garden to a large sunflower crop this year. We’ll harvest the heads and be able to store them well into the winter to feed the pigs.

Regular potatoes shouldn’t be fed to pigs, but sweet potatoes are a type of yam and are in a different class altogether. Best of all, both the expansive vines and the tubers themselves are a wonderful food for pigs. We’ve got ten hugelkultur beds we’re currently filling with compost, and last year’s sweet potatoes will be creating this year’s sweet potato slips. Growing in compost, they should reach a sensational size and be an easily stored food source for the pigs throughout the winter.

We’re going to be actively seeking out farmers of pumpkins and watermelons in hopes of trading pastured pork for trailer loads of damaged or leftover produce, but in the meantime will also be growing our own here. Manure compost and old straw/hay are things we have in plentiful amounts and these favorite pig foods grow exceptionally well and even volunteer in our compost areas. Last year a single compost area, without any help from us… grew around 50 melons and watermelons! The pigs also eat the vines.

Our pigs also enjoy eating their hay bedding, and our Kunekune pigs are huge fans of alfalfa.

A varied and healthy diet is important for the health or our breeding stock and growing piglets and junior breeders, but it’s also infinitely important for our meat herd. Why? Because fat holds flavor, and our well-marbled heritage lard breeds are known for their wonderfully textured and delicious fat. What they eat matters. Acorn-finishing is an age-old process, well known in Europe and believed to have been practiced in Ancient Rome. Producers of pastured pork all have their special finishing methods they use to impart the most marbled meat and flavorful fat in their pork.

At Corva Bella, we spend a lot of time ensuring our pigs are receiving the best nutrition from a wide variety of sources. We hope to one day be able to afford to add a Non-GMO feed to our process, in lieu of the locally milled 16% grower we are currently using. This is important to us and is one of our near-future farm goals!