Thank you for a wonderful feast, Harvey the Pig. Harvey is how Pam Ginsberg, the super-enthusiastic butcher at Wagshals introduced my roast to me when she hauled his carcass out from the back. Getting to know your food takes on a whole new meaning.

Our Supper Club was feeding 80 people. So we bought an 80 pound pig. We brinned him in a bath of copious amounts of pureed garlic, rosemary, peppercorns, salt, sugar, bay leaves, orange juice, all whizzed up in a blender then poured over Harvey in a black garbage bag. This spent two days under ice in a cooler generously lent by David Fuchs, owner of Wagshals wisely concerned for the health of our guests.

It took 3 hours to roast him in a Caja China to the first stage where all but the skin was cooked. 

Then we turned him over, put the lid with the charcoal back on top and roasted him for a further 45 minutes. When the lid came off for the last time, this is what we found.

When everyone went home, this is what was left. 

If you want to read more precisely how to cook a whole pig (or any other quantity of meat or fowl) in a Caja China Chinese Box, click on my Washington Post article.

The basset in the first picture who sat under a juice-dripping table became a seething dog magnet on his late night walk. 

Thank you, Harvey. Thank you, Pam and Wagshal's.

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1 Comment

1. Vijay

   Thanks Julia! Harvey was delicious.