#592 Grilled Pig Apples

The other day I was at a place where they were barbequing a whole pig. The barbeque smoker was apparently fueled by wood.
In these times, it’s always amazing to see people using wood for uses other than that most modern pinnacle of wood processing technology—toilet paper.
On the grill was an extremely woebegone looking pig. Head and skin were in place, but you could see backbones trying to poke through, and the splayed out limbs indicated the pig’s innards had been removed.
Which for my money was probably a good thing. Barbequed pig stomach may be okay, but intestines and liver and stuff don’t improve substantially with alder smoking in my cookbook.
The skin was looking bright red and crackly and stuff but didn’t appear to be in any danger of become chicharrones anytime soon. I like the word “chicharrones” rather than the English “pork rinds” or “pork cracklins.”
It sounds so much less white trash when you give it a Latino twist.
In any event this pork skin was crackling but it wouldn’t end up being cracklins. Charred leather was more like it.
What was disconcerting about the whole pig barbeque was the head.
Now, I’m a carnivore from way back. And I firmly believe that if you are going to eat something, you should be able to look it in the eye. But that’s before it’s rendered and butchered and what not.
Not while it’s actually cooking.
There’s something about leaving the head on through the entire cooking process that makes we want to join PETA.
Bodies cook. Heads suffer.
Say all you will about body language. Expression is in the face.
So seeing this pig’s face while the rest of him was splayed out smoking and barbequing to a fine savory succulence added a different dimension to my eating experience.
A more upchucky one.
Especially when I noticed they had put the traditional apple in the mouth of the pig.
And what was even more disconcerting—the apple appeared to be half eaten.
Why? Was the cook eating the apple as the cooking progressed as some ancient method to test for doneness?
Or did they kill the pig...mid-snack?
America, ya gotta love it