Epic Pig Roast: We Don't Know How to Do This. (Part One)

Disclaimer: This ought to go without saying, but some of these photographs involve a very dead pig. If you get squeamish about such things, you should skip this post. And probably any post that has the "slaughtering and butchering things" tag.

This summer has had a lot of pork in it. It hasn't been a coincidence. 

With my friend, the same one who celebrated his birthday with bacon and ice cream, I've been planning the most outrageous summer party of my life. All my recent pork adventures have been attempts to learn as much as possible before our big event. And it's amazing how a strong love of pork and an impressive lack of experience and information can get people (mostly big, meaty, man-people) to open up and become fountains of tips, advice, and stories. It's been lovely, smokey, delicious, and hilarious. But last Saturday was the culmination of our summer of research. We got a chance to put all of that advice to a test. 

My friend Matt and I roasted a whole pig. 

Practically by ourselves.

This is the story of our pig roast, how awesome we are, and why we're never doing such a ridiculous thing ever again.

Told in two parts. This is part one. Pre-roast day. 

Meet Beatrice.

We were introduced to her by one of our friendly neighborhood butchers at Cannuli's, which is in the heart of the Italian Market in South Philly. This guy regaled me with stories about his own pig roasting adventures while I waited, including one where he had to prove to a cop that the roast pig in his backseat was not, in fact, a dead human body.

When he held Beatrice up for us, another butcher yelled "D'you want the one with the sunglasses, or the one with the ears?"

It's a pretty cool place.

We also talked to the boss, Charles Jr., who roasts his pigs in a professional oven and sells them to people. We'll do that next time. 

I think he always looks a little grumpy. But it was a very serious discussion. We had a lot of annoying questions, and he took plenty of time to talk to us. The best advice we got from him was to take it easy and not rush. And to coat the pig skin with olive oil. Yum!

Then another lovely Cannuli's employee wrapped Beatrice up in butcher paper, and walked us out through the back of the butcher shop. Which was thrilling. Even more so, because, although this particular store sells already-roasted pigs quite regularly, it seems like buying an entire raw pig is somewhat unusual. Or at least, everyone in the back of the shop stared at the pig as she went by.

This fellow gave us some good advice too. He told us not to get drunk until the pig was done. Harder than you might think when you have a minimum of eight hours to waste as the pig just spins around cooking!

She was 59 pounds of dead weight, but not too unwieldy. Or at least, it didn't seem like she was. I didn't actually carry her, I was too busy snapping photos.

As we walked down the street, cars slowed down to try to figure out what was going on. One fellow yelled out his window, "I hope that isn't a dog!"

Oh, South Philly, your humor is so... basic. It's okay though, I still laughed.

Beatrice has a pretty terrible sense of humor too. She thinks it's funny to stick her tongue out in photos.

We put Beatrice in the bathtub with a few bags of ice, and let her chill out while we made a wet rub and a marinade. I don't know if "wet rub" is the proper cooking terminology, but that's what you get when you stick a huge amount of garlic (I want to say 60 cloves? Not sure.) and four bunches of thyme in the food processor with some olive oil.

Then we peeled and processed eight oranges with a bunch of lemon and lime juice (about 7 of each?) and a lot of salt, since we figured Beatrice needed some. Citrus and salt is such a weird combination.

We rubbed her insides with the smelly (in a good way) wet rub, and poured the citrus mixture in over it.

(Two days later, my hands have just stopped smelling of garlic.)

We spent a long time in my little bathroom: a 60 pound uncooked pig, me, Matt, and Barbara taking photos.

It was a bonding experience.

Then we made a pot of apple sauce, about 12 pounds of potato salad, and around midnight, called it a day. We were going to meet up again in six hours.

Stay tuned for Epic Pig Roast: We Don't Know How to Do This. (Part Two)!