An informal convo with Daniel Vaughn...
An informal convo with Daniel Vaughn...
An inside look to my Lechon photoshoot and the Texas Monthly BBQ editor gives me some insight on why there aren't many books that highlight spit-roasted whole hogs.
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It’s Monday morning and I’m really trying to write a newsletter for tomorrow. But, to be honest. My brain is still mush; it’s hard to process thoughts into words. My hands are still hurting and stiff. I still have a cooler of pig water. I’m scared to open the door. I still have a cooler of unclaimed Modelo (I don’t even drink), La Croix (damnit, Shawn), and Diet Coke that I have to get rid of. This is why I tell people not to bring anything. Because I know I’ll get stuck with the responsibility of “what to do with it?” in the end.
Having spent Friday making the beans and rice and seasoning the pig with those quintessential Puerto Rican pig spices, Mami and I started putting briquettes and lump charcoal on the ground before the sun came up on Saturday. But, Nando (with a box of pan dulce) and Santana (with a box of doughnuts) both showed up around 7AM, ready to shove a bamboo pole (acquired by Peter) up a pig’s tuchus.
And now I have to figure out how to write this damn thing for the book. I don’t know the vernacular on how to tell someone to roast a hog. Lechon is so interwoven into the fabric of communal Puerto Rican gatherings and yet, there are no lechon recipes in any of the forty Puerto Rican cookbooks I own. Maybe I skipped over them.
Like, Mami and I know how to roast a pig. My nana taught us. But, I can do it by sight and intuition, like most cooking. I don’t know what temperature the fucking heat source is supposed to be! How do you tell someone that? I can tell you how many cement blocks you need for a specific size pig, but I can’t explain which directions the blocks are supposed to be. “The holes in the blocks should be outward?”
I’ve been reading and reading books on how to roast whole hogs. Skimming the books in search of the official terminology that my brain can’t express in writing. But, there are very few examples of spit-roasting whole hogs in any of these books.
It can also be difficult to track down a pole for the pig. You’re thinking, just go to Home Depot, right? WRONG! Most of the shit at HD is treated (I learned that the hard way) and is poisonous in food applications. You need to either get a metal pole (metal over an open fire for 8 hours should be fun), an untreated piece of wood (like a closet pole?) or, hunt down a damn bamboo pole. And as many books as I read to try and find the vernacular in order to write about roasting a pig on the spit…turns out…there ain’t much! I was shocked.
I turned to my colleague, Daniel Vaughn, Barbecue Editor for Texas Monthly and Co-Author (with Sam Jones) of Whole Hog BBQ. If anyone knew where the hell the literature was for spit roasting hogs, it would be him. I also wanted to show him some photos of my finished pig; my local, sustainable and heritage pig that was slaughtered and directly delivered by the wonderful people at…