Oink! Double Up, Oink! Oink! (gun in mouth)
So this last weekend myself, Smokeador and J. Smokeknee attempted to, and eventually succeeded at, cooking a stuffed whole pig in my backyard…in the ground. It was quite a bit of work. *Note. When I say “quite a bit” I mean it in the classical dictionary sense of the term. Quite a bit of work equaling roughly one metric shitload. It was so much work I can't even begin to explain. That is a lie because IT BEGINS NOW!
*note: This is going to be a long post so just get over it already. This thing took up 3 straight days of my life so just sit back and get ready for mild amusement at its finest.
Friday:Bear Grylls one said (last week) that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. For me, the step of my pig journey began by buying a mustache. (?)
At 5:30 or so Smokeador came over from Dallas and shortly thereafter J. Smokeknee arrived as well. We had a 30 minute board meeting, and various directives and policys were both, passed by a majority of the Board, and implemented. (none of this happened)
Friday was a lot of work for the trio. We started with what we knew was going to be the real shit job of digging the hole. I do not recommend digging holes in a very serious way. Very serious. Its slightly akward on the back, and its terrible for your mustache. I got dirt in my hair. And in my pants.
But it really wasn’t all that bad and it felt good to have accomplished something. Even if that something drastically lowered property values. It took a little over an hour but we eventually did it.
Shopping:
Thereafter, J. Smokeknee and I went provision hunting for like 3 hours. 3 HOURS! I haven't been on a shopping trip like that since 9/11 hiyo! (BLAM)
Home Depot:Grill grate for pig to rest on
Shovel
Mesquite: 5 bags (we should have bought 20)
Cotton thread
Lighter fluid
Propane accessories
Mixed Salad
Italian dressing
Cucumbers
Green peppers
Tomatoes
Yellow and red peppers
1000 feet of aluminum foil
Black pepper
Spice mix
Carrots
Velveeta
Tom Thumb:Sweet Potatoes
Carrots
Wine
Beer
J. Smokeknee’s house:Paper plates
Plastic Forks and such
Napkins
Chicken wire and pliers
Albertsons:Propane tank
Gum
Finally we finished and we made it home safe with a lot of provisions and a hunger for meat. Back at the house we pretty much put all of the refrigerated items up and went to eat at the Silver Fox. It was way past ten when we got there. Our waitress hated us. There was mention of a “4 forks salad”. Hilarious. Good times had by all except for the waitress. Moving right along
Saturday:
Saturday starts at 9:00 am with Smokeador waking everyone up claiming he has doughnuts and coffee, which he did in fact have. Smokeador manned the fire and J. Smokeknee and myself cut vegetables. See below.
Saturday starts at 9:00 am with Smokeador waking everyone up claiming he has doughnuts and coffee, which he did in fact have. Smokeador manned the fire and J. Smokeknee and myself cut vegetables. See below.
Next we had to awaken the Duke.
(The duke is kind of an A hole)
Anyway, we prepped him by rubbing his body with Italian dressing, pepper, and a store bought spice blend. (the exact blend is a secret) We then stuffed him full of vegetables, and J. Smokeknee sewed him up. We used a nail as the needle and tied the cotton thread directly to the flesh. This was AWESOME.
We then wrapped him in about 500 feet of foil. Over and over and under and over and under and over and under and under and around and over and under.
Next we placed him on his grill rack, and tied the grill rack to the chicken wire which served as handles for the pig contraption. This was ingenious, (thanks PSmoke). We lowered him in the ground, covered him with coals, and waited.
A TCU game, and a few lies later, we pulled him out. He was not ready to be eaten however. Smokeador sums it up pretty good below, but we bought charcoal and repeated the process until Sunday at 11:30, when as can be seen below, He came out crazy delicious.
Commentary:
This weekend was a long weekend, but it was very much worth the effort. Was there a fail? Yes. Very much there was an extreme fail on Saturday night. Some might say that it was not a fail because we eventually succeeded in doing what we set out to do, which was to cook the pig. But that’s wasn’t really the goal. It occurred to me Sunday night while eating a pulled pork bbq sandwich that the meat and vegetables, whilst crazy delicious, did not really gain any sort of flavor by being cooked in the ground. I have had seasoned braised pork before which tasted the exact same, which I made in my crock pot. This being said, why would you cook a pig in the ground at all and not just his shoulder in the crock pot or in the oven? The only real reason you’d cook at pig in the ground is for show, and so that a lot of people can eat him all at once. This was what we set out to do and failed at. I’m not upset about the fail but chalk it up to a learning experience. If we do this again, which we will, out of spite for the Duke, we will win.
Things we did wrong:
The hole was too big. I think the point here is too create a perfect box in the ground which can hold just the pig and enough coals to cook him. If you could just barely fit your pig in a ice chest and then poor coals all over him, then your hole should be about the size of that ice chest.
Not enough coals. We bought 5 bags. We should have realistically had about 10. That would have done it probably. We also bought wet wood from Home Depot, which really was a big problem in getting the wood to cook down.
(The duke is kind of an A hole)
Anyway, we prepped him by rubbing his body with Italian dressing, pepper, and a store bought spice blend. (the exact blend is a secret) We then stuffed him full of vegetables, and J. Smokeknee sewed him up. We used a nail as the needle and tied the cotton thread directly to the flesh. This was AWESOME.
We then wrapped him in about 500 feet of foil. Over and over and under and over and under and over and under and under and around and over and under.
Next we placed him on his grill rack, and tied the grill rack to the chicken wire which served as handles for the pig contraption. This was ingenious, (thanks PSmoke). We lowered him in the ground, covered him with coals, and waited.
A TCU game, and a few lies later, we pulled him out. He was not ready to be eaten however. Smokeador sums it up pretty good below, but we bought charcoal and repeated the process until Sunday at 11:30, when as can be seen below, He came out crazy delicious.
Commentary:
This weekend was a long weekend, but it was very much worth the effort. Was there a fail? Yes. Very much there was an extreme fail on Saturday night. Some might say that it was not a fail because we eventually succeeded in doing what we set out to do, which was to cook the pig. But that’s wasn’t really the goal. It occurred to me Sunday night while eating a pulled pork bbq sandwich that the meat and vegetables, whilst crazy delicious, did not really gain any sort of flavor by being cooked in the ground. I have had seasoned braised pork before which tasted the exact same, which I made in my crock pot. This being said, why would you cook a pig in the ground at all and not just his shoulder in the crock pot or in the oven? The only real reason you’d cook at pig in the ground is for show, and so that a lot of people can eat him all at once. This was what we set out to do and failed at. I’m not upset about the fail but chalk it up to a learning experience. If we do this again, which we will, out of spite for the Duke, we will win.
Things we did wrong:
The hole was too big. I think the point here is too create a perfect box in the ground which can hold just the pig and enough coals to cook him. If you could just barely fit your pig in a ice chest and then poor coals all over him, then your hole should be about the size of that ice chest.
Not enough coals. We bought 5 bags. We should have realistically had about 10. That would have done it probably. We also bought wet wood from Home Depot, which really was a big problem in getting the wood to cook down.
We ran out of time. We should have been up at around 7:00 that morning getting the fire going and checking stuff out. If we had been up that early we probably would have had more time to get more wood. As it happened however we got up at around 9:45 and by the time we knew that we probably didn’t have enough wood, the party was already 7 hours away so there was no time to fix it and we had to just hope. Hope couldn’t get it done and thus fail.
What we did right:
We ended up doing a lot of things correctly. We gave ourselves enough time to dig the hole, we all drank wine, I ran across the coals WITH my boots on, we didn't give up etc etc. However, in the end we did do one thing VERY right. Attempting it. Why the hell not? As Coach Gary Patterson once said when asked why he chose to play a team the size and caliber of the University of Texas, he stated that if we didn’t play them, somewhere down the line in the future we’d all look back and say “Why the hell didn’t we?”. Hardcore. I’m glad that we tried. Really excellent weekend. Lot of work. I’ll probably never forget it.
Thanks to everyone who came and everyone who helped. - SmokeHopper
Posts
2 comments:
Does bukkakeing (read:baking) a pig that is heavily wrapped in tin foil in the ground count as smoking? If not, is this entry better posted at http://www.realbakingwithrose.com?
post videos too
Post a Comment