When they harvested the hogs on
this show, *they had the meat processed and donated it to a homeless
shelter as not to waste it.
Lets hear your wild hog experiences!
Rich from PA
To me it does taste different. but it has to be a variable...diet &
mast, harvest size, harvesting methods/butchering.... a very different
lean but most supermarket cuts these days are way too lean for my
tastes. Chops and loin cuts are almost devoid of taste. Reason most
are brined and undercooked from old day recommendations. Only one
place in town where I can get a slab of belly these days, all the
rest is salt pork or similar size at the Asian markets, hocks up here
are all smoked, even ground pork is 3$ or more a lb . So shoulders are
meat of choice for me, esp. for making sausage and most all my Mexican
dishes. Chefs are buying up the piglets of more exotic breeds and
sending to finishers. some of this is is similar taste if finished on
acorn or other nut mast. But wild boar is also on their menu these
days. Wild boar tastes pretty good but should be w/o saying... if
properly prepared, don't know about pork belly/loin meat from them.
Had a shoulder up here that was as good as any Boston Butt, was a bit
leaner, yet slow cooked in a Ragu it was very enjoyable. Conversely
had a chop in GA. grilled that was as tough as leather, (drunken
soldier BBQ from hitting one w/ a car). Wild boar is a delicacy in
EU,had it in FRG and Italy, excellent dishes. Catching on in the US
and certainly the taste is not like the commercial ultra lean bred
pig common today. Chef Eric Rupert recently had a PBS show on Tuscan
Boar hunting. Similar to US. Drive hunting w/ dogs and shotguns.
Feral hogs are an invasive alien of no use in American eco system.
Herd animals, mostly. They cause wide spread destruction of
agriculture every where it lives. Introduced thru the South and later
thru SW by the Spanish in the 1500s, English in the 1600s colonies,
followed Settlers west, wide spread problem in US now days. Hogs eat
just about anything and all night long ( as that Canadian Murderer
Pickton knows all too well) . Russian Boar was also introduced for
sport, not as big as feral ( ~400ish lbs) but huge examples of x
breeding are showing up. Google image for Hogzillia. As hogs
generations go more feral and X, they get the tusks and hair and
mean... really, really mean. Javelina are in the SW are actually
peccary( related) but can cause similar results if near aggie fileds,
yet these are native and deserve a different approach. especially to
keep them from disease introduction. don't know if Javelina able to
x-breed with pig. These are edible but do not taste so good, esp. if
butchered poorly or if you get musk on the meat. Back to hogs,
potential source of many diseases, accounts for just about all (very
few) trichinosis incidents in the US every year. Believe one was
sourced as a bear. Recently feral hogs were suspected as the source
of spinach contamination in CA. Big worry there may be more of this
to come.
Less hunting pressures and hunting bans have increased the size of the
herds, thus territory expansion and crop destruction and as you said
even moving into towns to feed (same problem up here with Turkey,
Cougar and Bear, Coyote in LA) . Prolific breeders. Tough to hunt
because they can get under and through the thick underbrush quickly,
fences don't usually stop em. As you said really need dogs or a
chance encounter. Bad eyesight, excellent hearing and like turkey,
rarely r u you are going to walk em up. Blinds or dogs. Small
problem in WA State:
http://tribune-democrat.com/outdoors...pig-population
but understand they are a problem in PA also
http://tribune-democrat.com/outdoors...pig-population
Yea, this is really a gray area for a gardening unless they are in
yours.