Local Pork

My first encounter with homegrown meat was in my first year in grad school. I was living in Belchertown, about 15 miles from Amherst, in a sprawling old faramhouse in the center of town. Only one of my housemates was a student. Of the other two, one was a horsewoman and, among other things, worked at the Belchertown State School giving riding lessons to the patients there. She was friends with a lot of local people–she’d bring home a quart of raw cream in a mayonaise jar, unpasturized and smelling of the cow, for a buck.

Anyway, she was friends with these two guys who owned a farm just down the road. I think there were two brothers and either a cousin or best friend living there. The brothers had inherited the farm and were farming it. In their 20’s, they seemed pretty ill-at-ease around the ladies and I used to think of them as the Batchelor Farmers. They raised three pigs, feeding them grain and the slops from their regular beer parties. Unaccustomed to cooking anything besides pork chops, they didn’t mind parting with some roasts. My housemate brought one home one day for me to cook.

I laid it on a bed of chopped onions, celery, carrots, and apples and mixed in some sage and thyme. Salt and pepper over the meat. I roasted it and made a rough pan sauce with the caramelized vegetables and probably some baked potatoes. It tasted strongly of animal. There was no mistaking that this had come from a once-living thing, not something that came in a wrapped package. It was almost too strong, but it was tender and juicy and I liked the idea of eating something that was pretty pure.

I got another one for a pot-luck some friends in Boston threw. I showed up, but they had canceled the party. I stayed for a bit, then took the roast back to my friend’s house where I was staying. Her housemate attacked the meat, thinking it was leftovers. I managed to grab some away for my friend and me and it was damn good. I moved out of the house and lost touch with my equestarian housemate and the Batchelor Farmers, but never forgot the taste of the meat.

From such small beginnings…