chewing on a pig's ass

There's a number of religious and ethnic groups that don't eat pigs. Presumably a historical thing due to Trichinosis or diseases endemic to pigs. To my mind, that just means more meat for the rest of us. Pigs just plain taste good.

A few days ago I posted about making a Boston Butt in my crockpot. I got several Emails about that so I decided to pick up another butt (that sounds naughty, doesn't it?) at the grocery store since it was still on sale (almost 50% off!) and this time take some pictures of the process.

First I lay down some aromatic veggies for a bottom layer to keep the meat from adhering to the crockery. I don't use onions at the bottom, just carrots and celery and I use fairly big pieces.


Next I dice up about twice as much as I used in the bottom layer. These will go above the meat and on the sides. They add taste and provide moisture during the cooking process.


Here's the butt itself. This package has 7 pounds of meat which is way too big for my crockpot so I had to cut it in half. Half a butt is better than none, you know? LOL I sure do love butts.


If you thought I was being a little naughty before, this picture really pushes the envelope and gets graphic. Are we still talking butts here?

This, as you no doubt guessed, is the pig butt when I'd almost sliced all the way through. I'm holding it open so you can see the musculature. It looks so much like the anatomy books I studied in school you'd almost think this was a cadaver instead of a pig. Kinda creepy. But tasty despite that anatomical similarity to us.


Here you can see a different angle on the meat. This allows you to see what must be part of the pelvis that I sliced through. Do you ever think of the movie Babe when you eat pork? I try not to. That'll do, Pig. That'll do.


Anyway, moving right along...after cutting it in half I put one of the sections into the crockpot on top of that bottom layer of celery and carrots.


And then added in all the diced veggies...


Covered the pot up with the lid and cooked it for 4 hours on low, then added the spices (this time I used white pepper, paprika, garlic salt, and a bay leaf) and moved the temperature to high for another 3 hours. Then I ate it! Actually I only had a small serving, as you can see below, since I find that the taste improves a lot after overnight refrigeration. I find tougher cuts of beef and pork, like Boston Butt, are best a day or two after the initial cooking. Bon appetit.