Ah, Spring is in the air! For my family, that means loads of birthday celebrations, along with Easter, Passover, and May Day. We celebrate whenever we can. Easter Sunday is an easy one to do with local, sustainable, and organic foods, especially if you live in Minnesota, land of the pig and root vegetable. The folks at TheKitchn.com have provided a terrific list of places to find sustainable ham (heritage breeds), just in time for Easter. Here's an excerpt from the article:
[Heritage Breeds] taste much better than commercial pork breeds because they are raised for flavor, not mass production. Unfortunately, some breeds are at risk of dying out because there simply isn't enough demand for the meat. We think the demand is low because most Americans simply aren't aware that there are much better-tasting pigs out there - pigs that you won't find in the meat aisle of your local supermarket. The article goes on to highlight several producers of heritage pigs, including Prairie Pride of Minnesota and Flying Pigs Farm in New York, even including a bit of information about how the ham is prepared. Localharvest.org has an excellent description of what it means to be heritage pork:
There was a time not too long ago, before the boom of industrial agriculture, when farmers and smallholders always kept a modest number of what are now known as heritage pig/pork breeds. These were naturally thrifty, hardy animals raised for their meat, bacon and lard. The food chain worked beautifully for all concerned, the pigs lived off the land , on grass, grains and windfalls, and occasionally whey from the churn.
Unfortunately, heritage pork breeds are not suited for the intensive farming techniques being used nowadays, and some of the older breeds are in danger of being lost forever. Fortunately some are being preserved by a few dedicated farmers concerned about the general indifference of the consumer towards heritage breed conservation. All heritage pork in America comes from pure and cross-bred livestock.
Happy Easter!
