Local Offerings

(Fingers drumming on the table while we wait for the hog to be ready…)

Actually, we have two pigs on the way. One is a larger hog that we’ll be breaking down as I described in my previous post. The other is a suckling pig, roughly 20 pounds, a purchase inspired by my cousin Bill’s culinary dream of roasting a whole baby pig, which we will do for a big dinner this Christmas with the whole family. An entire post on that, complete with photos and eggnog, don’t you worry. More also on my cousin, Bill, an accomplished home chef who probably has influenced me in my food life more than he realizes.

Meanwhile, this blogging thing is a pretty tough racket. What do you write about while you’re waiting for exciting stuff to happen? 

As you know, pork is not the only meat we will be trying and writing about in this blog. So a couple weeks ago we hit the road in search of a beef producer. Ergo, we met the Welsches. Dave and Deb Welsch run West Blue Farm near Milford, Nebraska, about 45 minutes west and south of Lincoln. The Welsch family has been in these parts since 1892. The original church their family built still stands, and their crops are certified organic for the past 20 years. The cows are grass-fed and grain-finished, which means their fat content is somewhere between a fully corn-fed (more fatty) and fully grass-fed (more lean) cow, and they are all-but-certified organic cows, a certification they are currently working toward.

West Blue Farm cows just hanging out

We drove out to meet the Welsches on a Saturday morning. It had rained the evening before, but it was the first big storm in months during a very deep (and continuing) drought, so no one was complaining. With all the mud and road repair work going on around their house, we weren’t able to see their herd, but we did get to see the handful of cows that were being finished (the last couple months of fattening before they are slaughtered) as well as talk with the Welsches for a good hour about their operation and what they are trying to accomplish. All of their children are grown. One son offered to work part of the family land, but when he said he planned to use “conventional methods” (i.e. not organic), Dave said “no thanks.” So it’s still just the two of them on the farm. 

They also raise chickens and have just begun raising pigs, which they say is a lot of fun. And they get their piglets from where else? The Stecs, of course! The same couple that owns Erstwhile Farm, where we are getting our hogs from. Small world!

Over the years, my family has probably eaten more beef than any other kind of meat. But I am not ready to take cows off my list. I still feel like there is a lot to discover.  We will be buying half a cow from the Welsches in January or March. The half cow will be cut into three pieces so we can butcher them at home, but those are still pretty big pieces, and I still have no plan for how to get them home. More new territory. Logistics are important. But we will worry about that later.

After we left the Welsches, we decided to visit a couple of butcher and meat shops in the area. The first one, Blue River Meats, is a great little nuts-and-bolts butcher shop just off Hwy 33 in Crete, Nebraska. Not much in the way of ambience, but you could tell the meat was fresh. The selection was amazing. Huge arm and leg pieces on display, and you could get a roast cut to order. We did not stay long. We wound up buying one ribeye steak to try, but that was consumed before it could be photographed. It was reely, reely good.

Blue River Meats

Next stop was Wilber, Nebraska. Known as the Czech Capital of the United States, Wilber had a couple places we were interested in seeing. This town has a quaint downtown Main Street that feels very festive even though Czech Days came and went months ago. Polka music is piped into the street all year round! Although it was a bit surreal, like that scene in Andromeda Strain when the researchers arrive to investigate. With no one around to listen to the music, you kind of get the feeling something bad is about to happen.

At Frank’s Smokehouse, we bought some very delicious authentic Czech sausages that I wound up slicing and sautéing with vegetables and wild rice. Incredibly beefy, and firm (and LEAN -- I had to add olive oil just to get them to render a bit) and a great crispy snap when I bit into the casing. When did I discover I liked natural cases? Hard to say. But I am all about them now. Texture is as important to me as taste.

Very straightforward, not all that adventurous, but still very delicious, very local, and very fresh

Across the street at Wilber’s Meat Market, their selection of meats, about half sausages and half regular meat cuts such as roasts and steaks, is available mostly frozen (vacuum packaging). A great selection but not the feast for your eyes that Blue River Meats was. Still, they had this little gem:

Pickled pig's tongue

The woman there told me they make their own pickled pig tongue. “Is it good?” I asked. “I don’t know, I never eat it,” she replied.  I didn’t ask why she didn’t eat it, but I was disappointed she said "no." This is clearly a local classic. Was she not from around here? 

I can tell you, as someone who has already tried and cooked beef tongue before, that tongue really is delicious and probably one of the first “parts” you want to try if you are interested in something new and adventurous, largely because it doesn’t taste all that different from a regular cut of meat and also because it is truly one of the most delicate and fine pieces of meat you will have the pleasure of putting in your mouth. Seriously. Give it a shot and tell me I’m wrong. But my guess is you will like it.

I have never had pork tongue before, however. The meat was set in a very firm gelatin that was then sliced thick, kind of like lunchmeat. So that is what we did with it: two slices of bread and some mayo to make pickled pig tongue sandwiches. No wanky taste that you would associate with liver or other organ meat. Kyle, my husband, ate it with me. He said he liked it but described it as “chewy.” I agreed, but I’d say that the texture was more just firm, not like a tough piece of meat. As I ate it, I pictured a farmer turning off his tractor, wherever he happened to be in his corn field, and pulling this out for lunch. Really yummy and definitely something I would eat again.