Thanks, thickstrings! It tastes like, well, salty meat. Honestly it's a little dry. I've read about the Spanish charcutiers and they take samples from the core periodically to judge how dry it is. I'm not sure what they do differently, but I feel like mine is overly dry. I'm also a little unhappy with how lean it is. I'm probably overly critical of it, but I think it could be better. I think next year I'll probably do pigs again and go with just Berkshire, or maybe a Berk and a red wattle. Side by side, the Berkshire was much better than the Tamworth from first attempt at pigs. So, if I do pigs next year, only three more years 'til the next batch is ready...
They both ate a lot of acorns, though. Lots of apples, squash, pumpkins, and onions, too. I think the restaurants are happy to buy it because its local and they were giving me the kitchen scraps for the pigs when they were growing. I don't think it's really marketable on the large scale, though. There's such a niche market for this kind of product anyway. Definitely worth doing again, though, and hopefully better next time. The sales from the ham have paid for the pigs, so a reall win-win for me.... and I still got the other couple hundred pounds of meat for us!
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