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August 06, 2009, 10:01 AM
Tales From Behind A Butcher Knife
 Last year, in a rural Virginia field, two hours from home I bellied up to a table of 100 strangers for a five-course meal made in a makeshift kitchen just a few feet away from where we ate. I was there reporting for USA Today on the farm-to-table dinners that actually take place in a farm field. Milling around before this truly al fresco dinner, I talked to Chef Nathan Anda about the porchetta, left. He explained the meat was from the stomach of a pig -- the same place bacon comes from. For some reason, this prompted me to ask if I could butcher a pig with him.
Fast forward a few weeks and I found myself standing in a kitchen with Anda and a 250-pound, hairless pig. The experience, which eventually led to this piece, was at once incredibly fascinating and gruesome. The experience gave me a much better understanding of what exactly I'm eating when I nosh on prosciutto-wrapped melon or an egg-and-bacon sandwich. But, in our prepackaged world, it was also a disturbingly primeval process. One, I now share with you in a photo essay. Be warned, this is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.
Anda had already removed the ears from the 250-pound, hairless pig, which came from a farm in Pennsylvania with its organs already removed. The pig was still warm when it arrived so Anda iced it down to 44 degrees for sanitary reasons and to make it easier to break down.
Anda cut off each of the back legs, trimmed off the meat and fat until the ball of the hip socket showed. He'll pack both of these hams with salt and cure them for prosciutto.
Next, Anda cut under the front legs -- slicing up as if he was cutting off an arm at the armpit. He cut just enough to fully splay the legs.
He worked on the mid-section, which is what will become bacon. Or, if you use the whole stomach including the lean meat, it will be porchetta.
Anda saws the ribs off the spine, then uses a cleaver to get them the rest of the way off. The ribs are cut in half. The half that are closer to the stomach are baby back ribs and are richer. The others are spare ribs.
Anda removes the head. Then, he breaks down the front legs, which will become picnic ham, and the neck muscle, which will become cappicola. Later, he will boil the head into headcheese. In the end, Anda will use about 98% of the animal.
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