as tender and vulnerable to attack as any underside should be. Alternatively, belly meat can be diced for stir fry. Spareribs are fatty and bony, so cheap and delicious. If they are squared (sternum and rib tips removed), they are St Louis-style ribs. There are many different iterations of ribs that a butcher can toss at you: baby back ribs (from the loin), button ribs (from the lower spine), country-style ribs (from the shoulder blades), but they all want slow, long cooking. Cuts: bone-in or boneless belly (bacon or fresh side pork; also specify skin-on or skinless); spareribs, and riblets Legs Often referred to by their most popular outcome, hams, legs have plenty of uses even when not set aside for curing, smoking, and aging. They are, after all, one quarter of the carcass. You can roast a leg whole or as separate muscles, as with the leg of any animal. Grind it or make stew or sausage (with the help of some fatback or belly to avoid dryness). You can make steaks that are sliced very thin, and pan-fry them to serve with red-eye gravy. Cuts: whole ham or ham steaks, cutlets, or scallops; hindshanks; rear hocks; bone-in or boneless roasts, whole or divided into inside,
outside, and knuckle roasts; strips and cubes OFFAL If you buy a whole pig, you must ask for the following things or you may not receive them. If your butcher buys whole animals, they can save these items for you. You have to be very clear with the slaughterhouse that you would like the head, ears, feet, caul fat, fatback, hocks, and trotters. Have them remove and save the cheeks and jowls for you. The cheek of most any animal is a silky and tender muscle that is best cooked slow and wet. The jowls are often cured and sometimes cured and smoked into what the Italians call guanciale, a sort of “face bacon.� You can also make head cheese by cooking the whole head in a giant stockpot, resulting in morsels and gelatin (see Headcheese, page 150). Fatback, the strip of unadulterated fat on the top of the pig, is a treasure trove for sausage and charcuterie. The fatty skin becomes pork rinds and the fat itself is seasoned and cured to make lardo, which can be spread upon anything. It can also be rendered for cooking fat. Usually hocks are smoked and tossed into soups as a flavor pill, adding bass notes of smoke and salt. Trotters and hocks can also make a nutrientdense, gelatinous stock.
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