Pork roasts

Our great grandparents wouldn't recognize the pork we eat today. It may be healthy, but it's tasteless and dry. Their pork roasts came to the table under a golden armor of crackling and when you cut into it, it leaked juices. You didn't like the pearly layer of fat between crackling and skin? You didn't eat it! But it was there to baste the meat and add to its flavor and richness.

Pigs are intelligent animals. Like any other, they deserve to be treated well. The lives of intensively farmed pigs are as miserable as those of battery farmed chickens. Both creatures make flavorless food.

Buy a cut from a heritage breed of pig and you'll taste the difference. There's often a heritage breeder at the Dupont Farmers Market. And you can order a joint from Pam Ginsburg, one of the butchers at Wagshal's on Massachusetts Ave NW.

Or log onto http://www.localharvest.org/features/heritage-pork.jsp to learn more to discover where you can order pork - or organic produce or participate in a CSA scheme - off the web. 

If you want a roast that's ready cooked, try the honey-glazed Cantonese roast pork or the roast pig with crunchy crackling at Fu Mei Chinese Cafe, inside Great Wall Supermarket, 2982 Gallows Rd, Falls Church, 703 208 3388. 

To read my article in The Washington Post on roasting a whole pig in a Chinese Box, click on http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46125-2004Jul13.html

Related Ingredients...

Parma ham & others
Pork meats & cured sausages
Pork roasts
Sausages