Skin & Bones – The Rest of the Pig
There is more to the pig than just the classic cuts of pork chops, hams, bacon and ribs. There are also good eating in the oddments such as skin which can be used to make chicharones, puffed pork rinds, crackling and for covering roasts making them self basting.
Trotters, Head & Pork Skin In Situ
We get requests for skin, back fat and such both from individuals and through the store managers but these things don’t tend to be carried on the shelves as they’re oddments, less common cuts with which American consumers are not as familiar. This is a bit of a catch-22 since if the product isn’t on shelves then buyers don’t know about it so they don’t shop for it so store managers don’t carry it.
Now that we have our own on-farm butcher shop I’m able to do some special cutting to break through this cycle. This week I sampled some oddments to stores for your culinary pleasure:
- Trotters – excellent for thickening stews; Recipes
- Skin – for making chicharones, puffed pork rinds, crackling and for covering roasts making them self basting; Recipes
- Bones – cut to expose the marrow for making nourishing, wholesome stews and soups. Recipes
These are all inexpensive items that you can find at the following stores here in Vermont:
| Burlington | City Market / Onion River Coop |
| Hardwick | Buffalo Mountain Coop |
| Montpelier | Hunger Mountain Coop |
| Plainfield | Plainfield Coop |
| Shelburne | Shelburne Market |
Of course, they also carry our delicious pork chops, roasts, belly, bacon, sausage, sirloin and other top cuts of pastured pork from Sugar Mountain Farm!
Time to do some warm, nourishing, comfort cooking in these chilling winter months…!
If you’re incline to dine out then check out these restaurants which also feature our pork every day here in central Vermont:
| Stowe | The Bench |
| Waterbury | Reservoir Restaurant |
Outdoors: 18°F/12°F Partially Sunny
Tiny Cottage: 57°F/62°F
Daily Spark: Elephants in the wrong room are best ignored.
Walter Jeffries Tinker, Tailor… A bit eclectic & a tad eccentric, polymath, quantum mechanic & Farmer. Also lucky at cards.
Any place to pick up leaf lard?
The Plainfield Food Coop often gets leaf lard. You can also special order it through the meat managers of any of the stores who carry our product.
Great. I will have to give that a try.
This really brought back memories of growing up on the farm. Thanks for the memories and your advise on all topics. Love your blog!
We’d tried barbecued snoot and now want to try making some trotters.