Kitchen hands bear the marks of the trade. They know there way around a knife, move from left to right down the board and down the line. They reach into hot pans and hot ovens retrieving baguettes without fireproof protection, prodding cuts of meat to test for doneness. A medium rare steak should feel like the web of muscle between the thumb and forefinger. Or like your plump lower lip. Full and filled with appeal.

The Gathering Together Farm kitchen crew has hands that speak of their lives. JC’s ring shines on his left hand as he preps onions for filling, dices veg for roasting, takes apart a pig for charcuterie. Ricky’s hands tell of late night music gigs, endless hours holding a guitar, a banjo, a spatula. Ana’s are feminine, but strong. They bear the pinch marks of the hobart, and the burns from the hot oil that she uses to cook fresh potato donuts. Ben’s are made to make pasta. Deft fingers creating classic shapes to impart texture from the old countries.

Here, hands shape, and are shaped by, work.

 transformed to this;

and then this

 and tommorrow after cooling I will show a cross section of the country pate

We have survived the inundation and are heading strong into the new year at Gathering Together Farm. As you recall in an earlier post Aimee chronicled the breakdown of the Mosaic Farm pig. Here is one of the projects begun on that day.

I ground muscle portions from the ham and the shoulder and  tossed with red wine, garlic, salt, a fermenting culture and finally large diced fatback. This sticky brat was stuffed into beef middles, tied, weighed and labeled. From there the young salamis go into a fermenting chamber where the fermenting culture becomes active and lactic acid is produced in large enough amounts to discourage any other bacterial growth. ONce the pH has dropped sufficiently the salamis head for the drying chamber. A drying chamber is temperature and humidity controlled to allow for a slow water loss from drying meats/salamis. At a 35% water loss the salami reaches another benchmark for safety….there is not enough water available for bacterial growth. We are technically there but will need more time to develop depth and complexity of  flavor. Coming soon to a salumi platter near you!

On the one hand the overflowing river has given us a fertile soil. On the other hand the river is overflowing.

AB was going to come and take photos of the follow up work to be done with the pork carcass, but got snowed in and couldn’t make it. So I forged ahead alone. There are certain time tables that belong to the breakdown of a pig at GTF. Salami gets made and thrown into a fermenting chamber for 48-72 hours. Belly gets put into a dry rub to begin a ten to twelve day curing. Coppa goes into a 12-14 day curing period. The petite hams…..which are a new project for us here were put up for 12 days in a dry rub…but need a little longer..next time we will go 14-16 days to make sure we cure to the center.

Anyhow we were up to 12 days with belly, coppa and hamsss so we did some smoking of belly and hams. I also cased, inoculated and hung to dry the neck muscle grouping called the coppa. A good day was had by all

Less than a mile from GTF, Mosaic Farms grows and produces some of the nation’s finest heritage breed hogs. Using hand mixed feed, sustainable land management and so much love, owner/operator Chris Hansen has grown Mosaic steadily over the last two years. He is one of a cadre of young farmers in the region who is putting his own stamp on agriculture through his hard work, smart business practices and full bore commitment to the welfare of his animals. Last week, Hansen personally delivered a whole hog, packed in ice in the back of his station wagon, to the GTF kitchen.

Breaking down the animal took several hours as chef, JC, worked to prepare meat for copa, bacon, salumi and fresh cuts. Of the 200-plus pound whole animal, less than four pounds was determined unusable.

For a gallery of images from the break-down, visit our Flickr photo set, here. A warning: we believe people should know what their food looks like at all stages, however some of the images are graphic.

If you have a whole pig by chance, make some liverwurst and serve it to a gaggle of friends with red wine and crackers. It makes one feel elementally healthy. Split some firewood or something.