Wild Boar Ham Roast

Our Thanksgiving celebration is a pagan feast that lasts 3 days. It is not a patriotic holiday in our family nor do we pray. But the family assembles for 3 days of eating, drinking and talking. Talking in all of its forms. Ranting. Discussion. Argument. Dispute. Sarcasm. Storytelling, jokes, puns and reminiscence. Verbal sport is played instead of football. The only time we’re quiet is when we’re chewing. We go through a pound of coffee a day. We drink gallons of wine. It is a Gargantuan event that leaves me wan and pale, with sore vocal cords and a distended stomach and a resentful liver.

Like any good bacchanal it is ritualized frenzy, and the rituals have to do with food. I sometimes tinker with the dishes and always hear about it later. So Wednesday is a buffet of Italian dishes, focaccia, sausages and salamis, caponata, roasted red peppers, bread, cheese, lentils and the like. Thursday is the usual. Friday is what I think of as the elegant meal, always built around wild game shot by my brother-in-law Karl. This year he brought wild boar, sow actually. Wild pig is not difficult to cook. It tastes much like domestic pork only more so and is of course much leaner. As with any kind of pork I am more and more convinced that low’n’slow is the road to tenderness. That and not overcooking it. The sweet spot is 150-155. Do not go to 180! If you want pulled pork buy domestic.

Wild pork does not need a long marinade, though it will take it if you must. There are many brined and wined recipes out there. This is what I did with the 8 pound, bone-ham.

First, I removed silverside and some connective tissue, but I left the fat on. If it had been an older boar hog I would have removed the fat. But with a young sow it is fine to leave the dense fat on. Rub it over with salt. I made a liquid rub: 2T of juniper berries crushed, ¼ cup chopped fresh rosemary, 1t cracked black pepper, 1/3 cup chopped garlic, 2 T red wine vinegar, a splash of red wine,  and ½ cup olive oil. Mix this thoroughly and rub and slather it on the pork. Put the ham aside. Chop a cup each of onion, celery and carrot and spread it in a roasting pan. Put the ham in fat side up and drape the ham with slices of bacon. Put it into a 275 degree oven for 5-6 hours, checking the temperature frequently towards the end. Once the roast has cooked for a few hours start rotating it once an hour so it cooks evenly. If you want it browned (and I did) finish with a 450 degree oven, just until it crisps up. The roast can and should rest for an hour or more. Its internal temperature should be about 155. This is enough to kill anything normal. For a sauce I soaked dried porcini mushrooms, about a half cup, in hot water. Strain the liquid and reserve. Rinse the mushrooms and chop. Pour off the oil in the roasting pan and heat it on the stove. Deglaze with red wine, add stock and the mushroom soaking liquid and mushrooms and boil until reduced, scraping the pan with a wooden spoon.  We ate this with rosemary roasted potatoes, a tossed green salad, cabbage braised over low heat for an hour with garlic, vinegar and bacon, and a wild rice and wheat berry salad with red onion, clementines, parsley, garlic, pecans, dried cranberries, apples, oregano, walnut oil and red vinegar. The wine was robust: Primitivo, Valpolicello, Amarone, etc. Of course, polenta would have been godly, but you can’t have everything, even at a bacchanal.