I thought the best part of breaking down a couple of hogs in my kitchen would be… well breaking down a couple of hogs in my kitchen. If any kitchen in Kalamazoo is set-up to butcher two whole hogs at once, it's ours. With sheer size, equipment, and staff experience we were able to butcher them in four hours down to the usable cut. It's been a long time for me, at least six years, but that’s pretty impressive for 450lbs of porky goodness. The best part turned out to be my staff’s enthusiasm, knowledge, and overall love of learning the lost craft of butchery.

Most of us were on the back end of a long week, a couple of our staff came down with illness but like sand, we always fill the cracks. By the end of Sunday’s brunch, the anticipation started to give us the energy the long week had stripped from us. Zach had worked seven days with no break, and by the start of the second pig we had to stop him. He was shaking with exhaustion. At this point where most people would have gone home and slept, he grabbed himself a milk crate and granola bar and watched till the last chop was cut. He even then helped clean up.

Tony “Slasher” (not “Big Tone”) saved us with the chine bone. Pork Chine is a square shaped area across the backbone between the shoulder blades that holds tender meat, which can be sort of a bear without a bandsaw. As we struggled to saw it with our large bone saw, Tony suggested a method that included a cleaver and a meat mallet. We blew him off the first couple of times, because tony is a super ambitious kid but lacks a lot of knowledge due to the fact that he is 21 and is very much in the learning stage of his early career. Little did I know that Bistro Rio, where Tony previously had worked, they had done this and he remembered it all pretty well. Pat and Ryan both served 600 guests for brunch this day and stayed ‘til the end, peeling skin and washing down the butcher blocks. I’m not sure what I did to deserve such an amazing and dedicated staff but I got one.

-Robb "Chef" Hammond

The list of items we are making with the two hogs are:

BBQ Pulled Pork

Pork Chops

Breakfast Sausage for Biscuits and gravy

Chorizo

Pancetta

Coppa

Lardo

Guanciale

Ribs for staff meal

Jagdwurst (Hunter Sausage)

Sopressata

I will update each one of these as they come out of the salt, or go into the casings.

Our pork chops are now on the menu, look for the rest in the coming weeks.