Boar Ribs
This meat is nearing the end of its relationship with me.
The recipe for a good set of wild boar ribs starts with shot placement. If you took the safe shot, double lungs and hopefully heart, you have to work around the mess you made when you butcher. If you hit just behind the ear, there is a blank canvas but you still need to know what you’re about as you turn a dead thing into ingredients. My first time was a doe, and I don’t mind telling you, I butchered it. I watched some youtube but not enough youtube to make up for inexperience and lack of supervision. My second was better and by the time I butchered my third large animal, I had some basic concepts in place and had specific questions. The instructional videos I found most helpful were Scott Rea, a tradesman with a lustful enjoyment of the process and food, and who takes the craft and its history seriously.
Looking at an animal in terms of meat creates tension for someone who has already studied anatomy. “Psoas” is a beautiful word, a perfectly good name for a thing, and has useful specificity, wheras “Tenderloin” has to be one of the creepiest words I know. I suppose Tenderloin is about eating and Psoas is about a functioning body and puts us in danger of realting to our meat. I have a Psoas, just like this deer, and I don’t want to think about that when I sear it with course salt and cracked pepper on cast iron, then cut it into pink medallions. Personally, I can deal with relating to my food. I prefer it even if its uncomfortable, it feels like a real relationship. But it’s possible the butcher’s vocabulary predates the anatomists’. At least, at some point, they must have been one in the same person.
So my last pig produced this beautiful short racks of ribs. I made a crock pot version, low heat for 8 hours, which was everything I wanted it to be. It was difficult to lift out because it fell apart, ribs slipping out, layers of transverse abdominis and fat (what bacon is) wanting to slide across each other. I had to let it set before cutting it up. There is, in every meal from this particular pig, the slight smell and taste of “taint”. For some people, this is a turn off and a clear boundary. I get it. It’s a peculiar smell, with an interesting chemical composition and it screams “NATURE”. My wife and daughter are not fans, so I am the one eating most of this hog. I can’t help but think, if they knew this animal like I did, it would be an endearing feature, like an eccentric friend. Whom you eat.
The dutch oven was fine, but I don’t always want to commit two cartons of mushrooms, garlic, onions, and half a bottle of wine, I just want to throw it on the grill and let it go. So I rubbed spices on it, seared it on high heat, then slow and low. Three hours and Magnifique! Dark, spicy, and crispy on the outside, slices into tender planks if the bone stays put. I’d serve this with tzatziki sauce if I had some. Cucumbers, olives, feta, all out greek. With just a hint of taint.