My grandmother and three of her five siblings lived on land that had belonged to their parents. They each built homes less than a football field apart and pretty much had their own little community.
My cousins and I had free reign of the dirt roads between the houses, and we ran from one home to another from dawn till dusk. Now, we were not bad children, but we did get into more than our fair share of mischief.
One of my grandmother’s sisters, my Aunt Helen, had a home at the back of my grannie’s place. She had a big barn full of hay, a smaller separate garden with basic herbs and tomatoes, and a large hog pen. She and Grannie each had their own set of chickens as well.
On the day this story happens, my cousin Misty and I found ourselves in Aunt Helen’s small garden, which just so happens to have been attached to her chicken pen. I have no idea what we were doing in there, but we happened to notice a couple of really weird eggs.
They were a little bigger than the others, but they were this sickly greenish-white and had STEMS growing out of them. I could not imagine what caused an egg to spoil so bad that it was growing green stems, but one look at each other, and Misty and I decided we’d just get rid of them.
The next thing I knew, we were up on the rails of the hog pen, which we had been firmly told to stay away from, and tossing the eggs into the mud. “Here piggy, piggy. Eat the eggs.” Problem solved.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and Misty and I were making our way down the road to my aunt’s again when we noticed that the hog pen was empty. We didn’t think anything of it until, walking into her kitchen, we asked Aunt Helen and Grannie what happened to the pigs. “Oh, they all died. Guess they ate something that poisoned them.”
I swear we nearly tore the carpet off the floor in our haste to get out of there. We had killed the hogs! I cannot tell you the level of sick panic I had wondering how on earth we were going to explain that we killed an entire pen of hogs with some rotten eggs. It was, decidedly, the worst moment of my young life.
Eventually I found the courage to confess being a swine murderer. Dragging my feet and making my face as sad as I could, I trudged into the kitchen. Grannie and Helen were at the table shelling peas. I told them how Misty and I found the rotten eggs and that it was me who threw them to the pigs though I never dreamed that it would kill them.
To their credit, they kept a straight face until I finished my confession. Then, with tears streaming from their eyes, my grannie told me between gales of laughter that the pigs never ate the eggs.
It turns out that my grandmother and her siblings raised pigs for food and, upon the annual processing of those hogs, they found what turned out to be bait eggs in the mud. Knowing our penchant for getting into trouble, they immediately knew who was responsible and thought they’d play a little joke on us. I was too relieved to be angry and my Grannie reminded me of the egg incident every chance she got. It still remains one of my favorite memories.
Pork is one of the major food industries and is a staple in nearly every kitchen across the country. Bacon, pork chops, ham hocks, pork loin… there is no limit to the uses of this versatile protein.
Nearly every single part of the animal can be used though I dare say that many people, me included, aren’t inclined to try things like hog-head cheese. (It’s definitely NOT cheese.) Sites like Modern Farmer (https://modernfarmer.com/2014/03/pork-cuts-101-diagram/) provide a wonderful resource for learning the basics of the different cuts available and give tips for how to best cook them.
Pinterest, of course, has thousands of pork-based recipes and, one of my favorite magazines, Taste of Home, offers a collection of over 100 mouthwatering dishes made from “the other white meat.” (https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/pork-dinner-recipes/)
If you are looking for something different for dinner, give pork a try. You might be surprised that it is so much more than a breakfast food! (Just stay away from the green eggs when you do.)
