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It's been five years since we last cooked a suckling pig on the BBQ rotisserie. That's way too long! So I ordered a little guy from Tip Top Meats in Carlsbad and picked him/her/they up on Wednesday.
Turns out this little piggy wasn't so little - 27.9 pounds! A brute!
They come frozen from the packer, in this case from Ames, Iowa.
Of course it's cleaned, gutted, wrapped in plastic, and ready to eat, right out of the box, except, of course, for thawing and cooking it. BTW, I've decided to call it "it" because part of "cleaning" it precludes the buyer (me) from determining whether it was a "Mr." or "Ms." Piggy.
Anyway, the little sucker (pun intended) barely fit in our auxiliary garage refrigerator! We had to temporarily move other necessities (beer and wine) to make room. And there it sat thawing from Wednesday until Saturday morning.
I started prep work on the kitchen counter only to realize that there was not enough room.
So I hauled it outside where I had more room to fight with it. It was a lot easier using the garden hose to rinse it off and clean up.
Piggy number 1250 duly inspected and tattooed by a trusty US Government pig inspector. I know this is gross, but remember what I said about the Mr/Ms dilemma?
The hardest part was getting it on the rotisserie rod. I had to amputate the tail with pruning shears. (Hey, I was in the back yard!) In order to balance it, I had to tie a 2-1/2 pound weight on its belly. Also, the spine needed to be fastened to the rotisserie, thus all the twine and stuff around the middle. You can see the piggy is smiling and happy to get this show on the road!
Video: Pink Piggy Rolling Over
Next step was taking the back yard out of winter hibernation, move stuff around and get ready for a piggy party!
The main table with Lorri and the booze table in the background.
The piggy carving station
The little guy is starting to color up. I can call it "guy" because in the common vernacular, "guy" can refer to a male or female human or animal, as in when a server comes up to your table in a restaurant and asks "what can I get you guys?", even if the table is full of only women. Then the same server may notice your female dog lurking under the table and ask "what's the little guy's name?"
Fortunately, the weather stayed nice and sunny.
I even raked the bocce court!
Looking south toward the BBQ
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Everybody brought tapas and wine!!!!
Now we're getting serious. Piggy is getting juicy and we're starting to open up some wine.
Nice! The fat is rendering and the skin is starting look crispy.
Video: The Piggy in Action!
Time to eat!
Here's looking at you, kid!
First, I had to remove all the string, skewers, prongs, and the weight.
Once that was done, it was time for the chef to carve some succulent piggy pork.
Video: The Chef in Action
Just getting started. I can tell because there are only three people at the table and still seven bottles of wine.
There is a lot of meat on at 29 pound pig!
So here we are enjoying the feast.
We feasted until it got dark!
Then we kept on feasting. And maybe enjoying some good wines too!
Tom took this photo! Cheers to all!
The Ladies!
It was a great evening! The theme was Spanish and everyone brought tapas and pinchos and Garnacha and Tempranillo and other Spanish-y stuff. Great times and great friends.
Thank you All!
The End!
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