Pig Trotters

Growing up, my family would drive from Delaware and later New York  to Louisiana to see my fathers parents for a couple of weeks each summer.  My grandparents, Wilmer Otis Caldwell (Tieb) and Vera Lola Caldwell (nee Payne),  lived out in the country ten miles west of the tiny town of Waterproof.  Waterproof  lies low behind the levy guarding it from the flood waters of the Mississippi River, it was obviously named in a moment of optimism.  My grandparents ran a little country store with a gas pump outside west of town.  In the early to mid-1960's, before farming became completely mechanized the local plantations grew cotton. Later, as factory style farming took over, most all of them switched to growing soybeans.  In those early days weeds were controlled by field hands with hoes, not pesticides;  when they were hoeing or during cotton picking time, a white driver would drop a truck load of black men at my grandparent's store for their lunch; sometimes twenty at a time.  The tiny store would be packed, shoulder to shoulder with sweaty men, and my grandparents quickly sliced meats and cheeses, making sandwiches as fast as they could for the hungry crowd.  Sitting up on top of the deli cooler was a 2 1/2 gallon glass jar of Pickled Pig's Feet.  The contents of the jar were obviously feet and that jar was always a curiosity and wonder to my sister and I.   It could not be easily explained.  Almost forty-five years later I've cooked my first pig's foot dish. 

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Fergus Henderson waxes poetic about pig trotters in his astounding cook book The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating.  He writes, "These are one of the most gastronomically useful exterminates. If your butcher has pork, there must be a trotter lurking somewhere. They bring to a dish an unctuous, lip-sticking quality unlike anything else. The joy of finding a giving nodule of trotter in a dish!"  Henderson calls for them in at least seven different recipes in his book.  Penelope may be alarmed to know that one of them, his recipe for Jellied Tripe (which calls for four pig trotters) looks especially good to me.  I do not believe I have ever eaten tripe before; and I must say P has been enthusiastic about my recent cooking adventures so I am not being fair.

In his description of the merits of pig's feet Henderson uses the word  unctuous.  It's funny how you may have lived a life and have almost never noticed a word before, and then suddenly it seems it's everywhere.  I took notice when Dan Barber used it in his beautiful talk A Surprising Parable of Foie Gras.  When I watched the video of the talk the first time I stopped it and backed up to hear him say it again. As an adjective to describe a person it is rather an insult; used to describe the gravy in a stew or the texture of a rich stock it is flattery.

It's not just Henderson who praises the pig foot.  In his River Cottage  Meat Book, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall writes about the "glutinous stickyness" and "gelatinous texture" of  a stock or terrine liquor to which a pig trotter has been added for good measure.  Of course gelatin comes from boiled bones, skins and tendons of animals so it is natural that adding a pig's foot to the broth will add texture and nicely thicken it. When I saw the pig's feet on the shelf at Safeway the other day I grabbed them and in the process proved Hugh wrong (a result he'd hoped for). It seems that even if  pig trotters can not be purchased in supermarkets in the UK, they  can be found in American supermarkets, even rather pedestrian ones like the Laramie WY Safeway store. 

The day after I bought the pig trotters, Reynaud's book Pork & Sons arrived in my mailbox.   Like his terrine book, it is beautifully put together.  Not to be outdone by Henderson, Reynaud's book has ten recipes calling for pig's feet.  Except for the slab bacon, I had all the ingredients (if not the required quantities) for his recipe for Pigs feet with walnut oil and caramelized onion.   I only had three pig's feet while Reynaud's recipe calls for ten, which I misread as six - the recipe serves six and, on the next line calls for ten pig's feet.    I do not believe I own a pot big eoungh to hold ten pig's feet.

Some days in the kitchen are pure hell.  Each imperfect solution to an unanticipated problem slowly but surely diverts you further and further from your original intention. Trying new techniques with only a vague impression of how they are supposed to work adds to the pressure.  Problem solving certainly is a key component of the creative aspect in cooking and yet, when the solutions don't come easy, when time is of the essence and when the techniques are new it can be an emotional roller-coaster.  Each successfully completed step or imperfect solution results in unwarranted optimism, each new obstacle seems it will surely lead to total failure.  Learning can hurt your head.  Forging new patterns of though and opening unfamiliar neural pathways is not easy.

The main problem was that I (obviously) had far too few pig's feet for the dish I was attempting.  When the feet were done and I picked the meat from the bones I had no more than a few tablespoons.  This was a problem.  I did have more than a gallon of rich gelatinous broth. Aside from a large frozen shoulder roast the only pork I did have was a couple of rather large frozen chops. I poached one of the chops in the stock and when it was thawed and mostly cooked I chopped it and added it to the tiny pile of meat.  One step further form my intention, but the dinner was saved. I sliced some of the pig skin into thin strips and fried it and added it to the growing pile of forcemeat. Of course the meat from the pork chop did not compare in tenderness or flavor to the few tender bits from the feet, but I had enough to feed the two of us. The recipe says to soften some onion in walnut oil and then to add the meat and salt and pepper to taste. The cooked mixture is then wrapped in plastic wrap in a sausage shape and, while you make the caramelize onions, is cooled to set. Mine did not set. A problem. The final step would have been to slice sausage shapes and to reheat under the broiler. To solve my problem I simply put it in an oven proof pan an reheated. An imperfect solution and another step further from my intention.  Did I fail to include enough fat or soft tendons when picking the meat from the bones?  I thought I had been generous. Should I have added some of the gelatinous broth to the mixture? It seemed quite soft as it was.

An hour later than I'd hoped,  I served my pig's fee topped with a balsamic vinaigrette and the caramelized onions. We ate it with a light salad, bread and a glass of wine; Pinot Noir for me and a Chardonnay for P. It turned out to look nothing like the image in Reynaud's book, but it was a delicious meal none the less.  I put the leftovers (what turned out to be two small servings) in a small terrine and added three chopped prunes and a few walnuts. The sweetness was a good addition and I enjoyed it for dinner alone for two more nights. (P is in the Canary Islands at a conference.)

Perhaps the best result is the stock. I got more than a gallon of rich unctuous liquor.  As promised, it jelled in the jars as it cooled to room temperature.

Jack Rabbit Cuisine

Stéphane Reynaud's beautiful book Terrine contains a number of recipes for Rabbit and Hare terrines. My own terrine was based on his Hare terrine with Marc de Bourgogne. Having no European Hare, I substituted Jack rabbit. Having no Marc, I generously substituted Cognac.

My Jack rabbit, killed the day before, was hung undrawn overnight in a cool (but not freezing) room. I skinned and butchered it the next morning saving the liver and heart. Rabbits and hares may carry Tularemia so inspection of the liver is required. It was beautiful. In my own experience, hanging game meat is a crucial step in bringing it to the pot, or grill, or oven. In the excellent  River Cottage Meat Book, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall discusses hanging meat and game.   Fearnley-Whittingstall is a leader of the locavore movement in the UK and runs a farm called River Cottage in Dorsett.  He notes, that for any meat, a period of hanging relaxes the meat so it will be more tender. I am convinced this is a must for deer, elk and antelope.  He recommends hanging hares (undrawn) with a plastic bag over the head to collect the blood for the sauce.  I did not collect the blood (and have had bad luck with it curdling when added to a hot liquid in the past.) Oddly, he recommends gutting rabbits in the field (and thus not hanging them undrawn.)  Also, he recommends not marinating hare in alcohol because it pickles the meat.  I did marinate mine following Reynaud's recipe.

 

Mostly, I followed Reynaud's recipe. I have no kitchen scale so I was guessing at weights.  The body of the dish consists mainly of about 1/2 hare and 1/2 pork meats. I marinated the meats: Jack rabbit saddle and haunch, liver and heart, pork shoulder and bacon (pork belly) overnight in the Cognac, wine, and herbs (rosemary and thyme.) The next day I drained and dried the meat and mixed in the cream (seemed like a bit much) and added an egg hoping to get better results in terms of how it holds together.  This was a warning from one reviewer; that many Reynaud's recipes fail to hold together with American ingredients.

I do not own a terrine so I used a bread pan.  I especially like the black cast iron Staub terrine shown in the photo above from Reynaud's book, but it is not available in the US. Le Creuset makes one that is sold here.  Terrine's are cooked double boiler style, by placing the terrine pan half submerged in boiling water in a roasting pan.

The finely chopped meat was layered into the bottom of the pan with the Jackrabbit saddles (whole) laid in the middle and then another layer of meat with the top covered with bacon strips. Some terrines are covered for cooking, this one is not.  It is baked at 350F for two hours. As it cooked quite a bit of liquid built up in the pan and I siphoned that off with a turkey baster at one hour and again at 1 1/2 hours. Once cooked I put it in the refrigerator to cool. It is served cold.

After chilling I unmolded the terrine.  It held together reasonably well, not as well as I might have liked, but it could be sliced and served cold. We ate it with a fresh loaf of bread and a sharp blue cheese, some pickles and a glass of  Chardonnay.  I thought it was quite good and although I was worried that Penelope might not care for it, she declared it to be excellent.

Next time, I will use a bit less cream, add another egg, and perhaps add a dash of Cayenne to give it a bit of a bite.

Jack Rabbit Hunting

Jean Baptiste Oudry,A Hare and a Leg of Lamb, 1742

Here in Wyoming the White-tailed Jack rabbit (Lepus Townsendii), is common; until you want to find one to cook up for dinner.  Further south, the typically smaller Blacked-tailed Jack rabbit (Lepus Californicus) is the more common species. The much larger Antelope Jack (Lepus alleni) lives in the Sonora along our border with Mexico.   The White-tail Jack rabbit has (as you might suspect) a white tail and black tipped ears. Jack rabbits are hares and not rabbits.  They are distinguished from rabbits by, among other things: birthing young that are able to see and are fully furred; having black fur markings; and living above ground in  shallow "forms" and not underground in "warrens" as rabbits do.  White-tailed jacks weigh in between six and nine pounds.   They can move very fast, reportedly up to 45 mph.

Theoretically, Jack rabbit populations go up and down in a predator prey dynamic with the coyote. Other predators include foxes, bobcats, cougars, badgers, snakes, owls, eagles and other species of hawks and man.  Jack rabbits  are crepuscular (active at dawn and dusk) and nocturnal. They spend their days in the thick cover of sage coverts, hiding from the ubiquitous eagles and hawks overhead. Stillness is their defense.  At dusk the Jack rabbits start to emerge; to sit and watch and  to browse at the edges of their cover. When the threat is not from above, speed in open country is their defense, they can run a half a mile in less than a minute and I have seen them do it. When they set their minds to it, they go astoundingly far.

The name lepus is derived from levipes meaning "light foot".  Hares do not so much run or hop but appear to skip across the surface of the flat country they run in best; they seem to float, dropping their feet every 15 or 20 yards or so to push themselves off again.  The other evening, well after sunset but before real dark had set in, I jumped one and then another. I had jumped these same two a couple of days previous and when they saw me they knew the routine.  I watched them through the binoculars, light gray apparitions streaking across the grayer landscape from which had all color had faded as the night descended.  The first of the two Jacks started off and ran 400 yards before stopping to look back at me. A moment later the second one took off and passed the first. Startled by his fellow the first took off again and they bumped one another, running until their grayness merged with the quickly darkening landscape.

Some years ago, hoping to jump shoot a duck along a winding riverbed that flows through the sage country, I killed a Jack rabbit on the run at dusk with my shotgun. I'd seen the Jacks there a few times before but they are impossible to get close to. Jack rabbits tend to perceive any impingement on their space closer than than 75 or 100 yards a threat and they run off to a stand to watch you. A long shot with a shotgun loaded with #5 or #6 shot is 40 yards. Crossing the river that evening and wading chest high through the thick sage that stood between between me and my truck I jumped him and as he darted out to the open grass I instinctively shot and I had him. I did not get a duck but had a hare.

Partially because of his size but also because of their reputation as inedible I was dubious of his suitability for the pot.  This is emphasized in Elantu Veovode's rather odd book The Contented Poacher.  This woman will cook and eat mouse, armadillo, road runner and rattlesnake but says she'd rather eat a boot than a Jack rabbit. Forewarned by Veovode but having studied a recipe for Jack rabbit tamales I pushed on.  I decided to take only the saddle and haunch.  The meat was exquisite in appearance, like a miniature deer backstrap and roast.  I cooked the hare together with a few grouse breasts in a mustard sauce, a recipe in Patricia Wells' book Bistro Cooking.  I was surprised to discover that the Jack rabbit was far better than the grouse.

I have wanted another Jack rabbit for the pot since I killed and cooked that first one. I have had the opportunity more than once, jumping them while hunting birds over the dog.  I forgo the occasional shot at one that offers itself when hunting over the dog. This is to avoid instilling bad habits in him, habits  like chasing rabbits and not hunting birds.  This may be a mistake on my part because Vizsla's are a versatile breed. Here, versatile is a technical term describing dogs that can be used to point and retrieve game and ducks as well as birds.

I made an effort to kill another Jack rabbit a few years ago with Gary, dragging him out in midwinter to the sage country west of the Sierra Madres near Baggs WY.  Gary is a carpenter and furniture maker, an archer and traditional bow maker. He  rides a Mustang and lives off the grid.  He has been everywhere in WY but had never been to Baggs and so he agreed to go.  All we found were cottontails and lots of coyote tracks in a stretch of dried up river bottom.  We each killed a cottontail just about dusk. It started snowing and the 170 mile drive home through a blizzard in the dark was not exactly enjoyable.  As it turned out, a prickly pear thorn had punctured Gary's mukluks and lodged in his foot; he was partially laid up for months. When I dropped him off he gave me his rabbit and, with aching foot, told me he'd rather not hunt rabbits with me again. Oh well.  Two cottontails don't hardly have enough meat for a meal for one but they cooked up just fine.

I recently acquired a copy of Stéphane Reynaud's rather beautiful book Terrine; there are a number of recipes for Hare terrines of one sort or another.  A terrine is a kind of baking dish (terracotta or cast iron) and the dishes made in it are called terrines.  Pate is a kind of terrine though other chopped and ground meats, especially game, are common.  Practically, Reynaud's book is flawed in a number of ways, but the photos and recipes inspire. The main flaw is that the book includes no section discussing basic techniques and theory of terrines, it is simply a catalog of recipes and beautifully photographed terrines. My copies of Escoffier and Julia Child which include the missing discussion are packed away in the attic. The other flaw, remarked on by a number of internet reviewers is that, even if the recipes are followed carefully, many of the terrines crumble.

Freshly inspired by Reynaud, by the memory of the mustard sauce and based on what Jim Harrison (or was it Russell Chatham) has called aggressive menu planning, I decided I needed a Jack for the pot.
 


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Over the years I have constructed a theory of a particular style of Jack Rabbit hunting.  The idea is to stalk them, glassing with binoculars hoping for a close shot but if you jump one, to let it run and be ready to pick it off with a rifle when they stop to look back.   These shots would typically be rather long, 150 to 300 yards, meaning you would need a centerfire .22.

Studying maps to find access to public land is a required skill for a hunter in WY. There is a block of BLM land accessible from the road near my house that would seem to be perfect habitat. There is some good sage cover not far froma a lake. On a hunch, I headed there late in the afternoon three days ago. Hunting new habitat is always an adventure. I carefully glassed the country ahead of me as  I walked in. I'd scan the landscape with the binoculars, then walk a few steps and glass again. I passed through a closed gate and when, closing the gate behind me, the latch slammed, a Jack Rabbit took off at high speed overland from the big sage copse and disappeared into a small island of sage further out in otherwise open country. I headed for him and as I neared he took off and ran again. I guessed he was more than 200 yards off when he stopped and I was already in a prone shooting position and ready. I squeezed the trigger and cleanly missed. I worked the bolt and I shot again and missed again and then he took off. I turned to my left and saw another Jack maybe 150 yards out.  Just sitting,  perfectly still, a mottled white form blending almost perfectly against the snow and gray sky. I turned and aimed sure that he was mine.  I fired, missed again and he ran off into the cover of the sage. I could not believe it!  I have very rarely pulled a trigger intending to kill an animal and missed. I was nonplussed; I simply could not understand how this could have happened. I did not have a hare to show for my efforts. I had a similar hunt the following evening; fewer shots taken but misses all.

I started to wonder if my scope had been bumped out of alignment (unlikely) or if the knobs has been turned since sighting in (also unlikely). The Kimber regularly shoots three shots into less than an inch at 100 yards. I could only imagine that I was misjudging distances and not properly compensating for drop. Judging distances in wide open country is difficult, there are few clues to scale, and the sagebrush here is very large. I took the laser rangefinder on my next outing.  I do not really like the technology and it's one more thing to keep track of but I needed to figure out what I was doing wrong so I took it anyway.

When I crossed the fence (quietly) I saw a sitting Jack down the fence line. I'm not sure if she didn't see me or if he felt safe sitting among the sage. With the rangefinder I measured the distance at 159 yards.  Had anyone asked before I ranged it I would have guessed the hare was sitting was a bit less than 100 yards.  I set up my shooting sticks, took aim and fired. As I have never heard it before, I heard the bullet thwack when it hit her, and she was down immediately.

At home, the hare was hung, undrawn, overnight for a terrine made the following day.




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It is difficult to relay the intensity and authenticity of this style of hunt; even to other hunters. It coalesces all aspects of big game hunting: the stalk, careful glassing, the potential for long shots and the prospects of a meal of wild meat.