In the company of swine
I’ve always enjoyed telling stories of my days in the kitchen but one story rises above them all. It always gets a strong reaction and tends to change the viewpoint of the listener.
On occasion at the Seattle Golf Club they would have theme nights for the members, it gave them an excuse to dress up in costumes and let loose from their generally reserved demeanors. One particular night that was a big hit was Western night; they went all out on this one. They set up a mock jail so that anyone could get a picture taken of themselves from behind bars. The also had one of the bartenders walking around with a holster with 2 bottles of Jack Daniels in each holster and two ammo straps filled with shot glasses, he would walk around giving shots to anyone that wanted one. At this particular time we had a Chef that was from Texas so he took his rib cookin pretty seriously. Luckily in the restaurant we had an alto-sham, if your not familiar with the item it is basically a slow roaster and holding oven. This is how we slow cooked all of our prime rib, pork and baron of beef. It is a great advantage over other kitchens because you can take 24 hours to roast meat and as it had an exhaust fan so it could be used as a smoker as well. This of course went against the standard approach of a true Texan as they prefer the bbq pit and the charcoal/wood approach. But he was a pretty smart guy and realized that when you have technology on your side you sure as hell better use it. So he decided to go with beef ribs and he filled up the entire oven with eight 400 pans (that is a 4 inch pan) and he looked over them like a Lioness over her newly born cubs. He then made is top secret 35 ingredient BBQ sauce that he said was a family recipe that had been handed down 3 generations. After he made the sauce and we all had a taste we were pressuring him to hand over the recipe, at one point the sous chef Paul found it lying on his desk and proclaimed to everyone “I got it…I got chefs secret family recipe and im selling it to the highest bidder”!! This of course caused everyone in the kitchen to come running included the chef. Before he could even react, the chef snatched it from Pauls grasp and threw it in his mouth. He started chewing the thing like it was a classified government document. We all started hooting and hollering amazed that he was actually trying to eat this thing; he chewed for about 3 minutes and realized he wouldn’t be able to swallow it so he spit it out right onto the butcher’s block. It looked like a giant spit wad but he had succeeded in his mission and rendered it illegible. His recipe was safe and he helped cement the reputation that all Texans were not firing on all cylinders. In the end the ribs were about the tastiest things ive ever eaten in my life and even though before hang everyone agreed that he had made far too many they barely made it to the end of the night.
Because of the success of this Western Night they decided to do an Hawaiian Luau. Everyone thought this would be a great idea as everyone owns an Hawaiian shirt and the island theme would be fun to carry out. They also went all out on this one and even hired some dancers in grass skirts doing the Hooky Lau, they sure got my attention as they were very attractive girls and could really shake those hips and of course the bikini tops didn’t hurt either. This time the chef decided to do a roasted pig and as no one really had any experience doing this he contacted some local Hawaiians and had them prepare the pig for us, it was a decent sized pig about 85 pounds and was delivered the day of the event already cooked and it even had the apple in its mouth. Now none of us had really seen a roasted pig on its full form, the head is still attached and the legs are basically just spread out like it had fallen from a cliff and splatted on the ground. Apparently they are basically just sliced open and the innards are taken out, other than that it looks exactly like a whole pig.
Now that we had the pig we really didn’t know what to do with it, no one had really carved a roasted pig before and the guys that cooked it were long gone. We lifted it onto a giant wood cutting board that we had and set up two carving stations back to back. A carving station is basically a heated base with two heat lamps; generally we carved prime rib or something similar for our buffets so this one was a challenge. Luckily the large board fit perfectly on the carving stations and looked like it belonged there. Once we got the pig situated everyone started looking at each other on who was the poor sucker was that would have to sit out there with this thing and cut off pieces for the members. It soon became apparent that everyone was looking at me, I wasn’t the low man on the totem pole but I was without a doubt the one that had a combination of the most carving experience and the most presentable appearance. As this was the height of grunge era the other guy that usually carved beef was growing the goatee to rival that of Scott Ian of Anthrax, of course he did this intentionally so that he wouldn’t have to go out to the “front’ of the house.
So soon it was decided by the powers that be that I would be the guinea pig so to speak and would have to carve this thing. I ran and got the my carving set:
1 Sharpening Stone
1 12” Carver
1 Carving fork
1 Scimitar
1 small steel pan about 4 x 4 for carving scraps
2 Towels
After grabbing my the tools of the trade I headed down on the floor to my station, now it had been set up in an elaborate location and one that didn’t make me very happy. Usually we set up the buffets on the upper deck of the dinning room so that it was very close to the kitchen and could be restocked easily and also allowed for the carver to take a quick break or 2. The reason for this is that the lights getting pretty hot and you tend to get pretty thirsty after an hour or so, add this to the fact that these parties lasted about 3-4 hours and that’s a lot of just standing around. But today they decided to put the carving station right down on the main dining room right by the bank of floor to ceilings windows. It was a huge display with flowers and palm trees and even the floor was filled with sand but the worse part about this was there was no real room for me to move, they gave me just enough room to stand. I could tell as soon as I was setting up my knives that it would be a long night. I was actually surprised that some of the members had arrived early and were starting to eat. Soon I realized that the moment of truth was coming and that I had to cut into this thing pretty soon. Just then the head chef came down and he saw how they had squeezed me into a corner, he was just shaking his head at my predicament. All he said was that he would help relieve me from time to time, then I asked if he any idea on how to cut into this thing. He really didn’t have any advice so we just started throwing ideas back and forth and it was decided that we would cut under the skin and keep it intact because if we didn’t it would look like we were butchering a live pig and some people might freak.
Just at that moment a couple came up to the my table and started chatting with the chef, they had already filled up their plates and were coming for some roasted pig. I started to sweat as I was stressing pretty hard on how to carve this thing, I soon realized the scimitar was the tool to use and I guided it under the skin and surprisingly with the dexterity of a plastic surgeon I was able to cut under the skin just as planned and separate it from the carcass, this would keep the presentation of the pig intact. Just at this moment the chef looked down and saw that I had completed the task just as we had discussed, he then excused himself telling the couple that they were in good hands.
I thought at this point he was right and I greeted the couple and tried to get a nice piece of pork for them. I of course knew that pigs are pretty fatty animals but as I hadn’t ever carved one I was little caught off guard by the amount of fat that was covering the meat, I started to trim away piece after piece of quivering juicy white slabs of fat. It stared to accumulate on the carving board and was far too much to put in the steel pan I had brought, also as I cut into the beast a considerable amount of juice started running out of it as well and the towels that I had brought were drenched. Soon after I had pulled off about an inch of fat I started to get a little concerned about where the hell the actual meat was.
The couple could sense my anxiety and even joked about how I was struggling. At this point they just started to chat amongst themselves and pretty much ignored me. Hunk after maddening hunk of fat was trimmed from this thing as I continued to be shocked by the lack of meat; soon I had to wave over a busboy and tell him to grab me a bucket from the kitchen. He saw the situation for what it was and hurried off to help me out, he quickly arrived and saw that my accumulated mass of fat scraps had doubled in the 90 second span it took him to grab a bucket.. He handed me the bucket and left quickly, at this point the couple started to take a little more interest in me and my dilemma. I was a little relieved at this point because I now had a way to get rid of all this large pile of quivering fat. I started filling the bucket piece by piece and filled it about a third of the way, now this was a 5-gallon bucket so it was a considerable sum.
I went back to the mission at hand and started trimming deeper and deeper and still no damn meat, I started to get a little desperate and I took a huge swath and went about and inch deep and pulled out this massive hunk of fat, it must have weighed about a pound and just as I was about to drop it into the bucket at my feet the couple saw it. At this point I made a huge mistake and looked up at them, they were starting to look green and were starting to sweat as well. Im not sure if they were embarrassed for me but they continued to wait, maybe they didn’t want to be rude, hell ill never know.
I went back again to my bane of existence and cut out two more pieces of equal size and them I finally saw the bounty of meat I had been searching for. It was only a small part that was showing but I could at least now see the light at the end of the fat….err tunnel. I carved around and around and trimmed and trimmed until I was finally able to get a nice slice for each of them. When I brought up the first slice I was about ready to make a joke to break the tension but as I looked at them I saw that they were about as nauseas as one can be without physically throwing up. I didn’t have the heart to say anything, they had stood there for 5 minutes while I pulled about 15 pounds of fat off of that pig just to get them a small slice that I was now offering. They both took a slice out of politeness and then went back to their table, which was only about 25 feet away. I periodically glanced over at them and they didn’t seem to be eating anything.
I went back to trimming this bastard of a pig…at least now I didn’t have anyone witnessing this massacre. For the next 10 minutes I trimmed away and ended up filling the bucket up with the disgusting trimmed fat. It must have weighed 25 lbs, I waved over the same busboy as before and asked him to go empty it and bring me a fresh bucket, At first he thought I was joking as he witnessed the carnage firsthand but once he grabbed a hold of the thing and felt the weight his eyes widened and his knees buckled. He then walked back to the kitchen and shared the contents with everyone back there; one by one the chefs and cooks came out to see what they figured was a decimated animal. They were shocked to see that it looked fine on the outside but when I lifted up the flap it was if I was giving everyone an immediate dose of seasickness. It was a disgusting thing to witness; as there was still fat all over the insides and pig juice all over the place.
Luckily at this point the chef took over as he saw I was swaying back and forth pretty hard, I went back into the kitchen and sat down for over 5 minutes, but I couldn’t shake the image of all that fat being stuffed into that bucket. From that day on I didn’t eat any red meat for over 3 years and I was a person that loved red meat. I couldn’t even look at a baked ham without it turning my stomach. But to this day I am not sure who had it worse, me or the couple that had to witness it. The only thing that made the night bearable was about 2 hours later when 2 kids came over and saw the pig laying there and started screaming, their eyes filled with horror and sorrow.