The Art of Waiting / A Arte de Esperar » Farm

Sucupiras in Bloom / Floração das Sucupiras

pigwhisperer — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:31:01 +0000

The Sucupira trees are all in bloom, dotting our farm with purple. Sucupira is a species of hardwood that is listed as a vulnerable species in Brazil. On the farm we have many Sucupiras (one of the benefits of shade-grown coffee)! Each tree in bloom has about 20 hummingbirds around it, and underneath it a carpet of purple petals.

As sucupiras da fazenda estão todas florando. Sucupira é uma espécie de árvore brasileira. Conhecido para sua madeira muito dura, que ainda é usada em construção civil, Sucupira consta da lista de plantas ameaçadas no Brasil. Na medicina popular, seu óleo aromático volátil, produzido pela casca e pelas sementes, é utilizado contra o reumatismo. Já os nódulos da raiz, chamados de batatas-de-sucupira, são usados contra o diabetes. Como nossa prática na fazenda é de proteger árvores, temos muitas Sucupiras. Cada árvore tem uns 20 beija-flores ao redor dela, curtindo as flores. Veja as fotos!

Our New Sire

pigwhisperer — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 21:36:22 +0000

Sadly, every sire’s reign must come to an end. This happened with Barto (Sir. Bartolomeu) recently, when he started shooting blanks and none of our sows were getting pregnant. Barto is a gentleman and a calm, kind soul and we’ll miss him. The sows will miss him, too, I’m sure. To make it up to the ladies, we decided to replace our kind, forthright Barto with Sílvio. Sílvio Berlusconi is a 75% Duroc stud (thus the red hair) who is suave, slim, and up to the challenge of having five wives. (See him in the photo above, giving Mona some loving kisses?) Sílvio is Prada to Barto’s Pendleton. He is Rémy Martin to Barto’s Sparkling Cider.
What time is it at the pig pen?
It is Bunga Bunga time.

In honor of our 2011 coffee harvest:

pigwhisperer — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 20:09:53 +0000

Coffee harvest 2011 is in full swing. It’s winter so there’s lots of rain and everything is damp (our shoes, our sheets, our books, our clothes). Coffee beans are turning red on the trees. We’ve got our crews picking coffee, and every night our machines hull the fruits from the beans. I found this cool graphic of the insides of a coffee fruit. Here are the labeled parts:

Structure of coffee berry and beans:
1: center cut
2:bean (endosperm)
3: silver skin (testa, epidermis)
4: parchment (hull, endocarp)
5: pectin layer
6: pulp (mesocarp)
7: outer skin (pericarp, exocarp)

How do you paint a pig’s hooves? Very carefully.

pigwhisperer — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 14:38:03 +0000

No, we don’t normally paint our sows’ hooves hot pink.

Our sow, Mona, recently started limping and acting very crabby and agitated. Usually, Mona is our calmest sow, always ready to be brushed and petted. Upon investigation, we saw that her back hooves were overgrown and one had a crack in it. A cracked hoof is bad because bacteria can enter through the crack and, at worst, cause a systemic infection. Mona’s leg wasn’t discolored but it was slightly swollen and tender to the touch (she made this abundantly clear). We called our vet and he arrived with a Dremel rotary tool and sedatives. The rotary tool was basically an electronic nail file, which we would use to file down any overgrowth on Mona’s hooves. Mona is 300 kilos (around 660 lbs) and we were pretty sure she wouldn’t let us file her hooves without some drugs. The hardest part was getting Mona to even allow the vet to touch her (she is very sensitive to new faces, even those she’s met a few times). But, after about one hour, all of her hooves were filed and her cracked hoof was slathered with antibiotic ointment and wrapped in gauze.

We had to give Mona medicine each day for about a week. And also we had to spray all of her hooves with a hardener/hoof protector. The challenge was that this hoof medicine was in a spray can, and Mona hates the sound of spraying. (My only guess is that, to her, the spray sounds like a hissing snake.) The only way to treat Mona’s hooves was to paint the medicine onto them.

Each morning I gave Mona a good brushing to calm her. (She was still jittery from the vet’s visit, and I don’t blame her. Who likes to be corralled, sedated, and then have their nails filed against their will by a strange man?) As soon as Mona rolled onto her side, I brushed her with one hand and painted her hooves with the other. If I stopped brushing, she’d get suspicious and roll over and snort at me. After about 30 minutes each morning, she was all painted and ready for the day. The medicine just happened to be hot pink, which is a great color on Mona, don’t you think?

Bird Watching: The Great Potoo / Passaros na Fazenda: O Urutau

pigwhisperer — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 11:51:08 +0000

We recently found a Potoo camouflaged in a tree. One night, as I walked on our farm’s main road, I saw two enormous orange eyes staring down at me. I thought they might belong to an owl (we have those here, too). But the next day, upon closer inspection, I saw a large gray-brown bird that kept its beak up and its eyes closed. People here call it the Pai-da-Mata (Father of the Forest) and the Mãe-da-Lua (Mother of the Moon). According to local folklore, the Mãe-da-Lua was once a girl who lost her husband and, in mourning, turned into a nocturnal bird with a sad cry.

O Urutau

Achamos recentemente dois Urutaus numa árvore aqui na fazenda. O passaro Urutau, também conhecido como jurutau ou urutago, dono-da-noite, ave-fantasma e, em nosso querido estado de Pernambuco, mãe-da-lua, pai-da-lua e pai-da-mata é uma ave cinzenta, da família Nyctibiidae, com boca grande e hábitos noturnos.

Aqui na Fazenda Várzea da Onça, achamos o Urutau pousando na ponta de um tronco morto de uma árvore, parecendo um prolongamento desse tronco. Uma noite, eu estava andando na estrada de barro da fazenda com minha lanterna em mãos. Fiquei surpresa de ver nesse escuridão, dois olhos imensos e laranjados refletindo a luz da minha lanterna! No próximo dia, eu voltei para o mesmo lugar e vi os Urutaus, (ambos com maravilhosa camuflagem) no tronco da árvore.

Apredi que o Urutau tem uma das adaptações mais curiosas encontradas na avifauna brasileira está no fato deles poderem enxergar tudo o que se passa nas imediações de seu poleiro, mesmo estando com os olhos fechados!

Segundo o dicionário Houaiss, seu nome deriva do tupi uruta’gwi.

Segundo Fernando Costa Straube, seu nome seria uma corruptela do guarani guyra (ave) e táu (fantasma):
“Para os guarani é a indígena Nheambiú que virou ave depois da morte do seu noivo Quimbae. Os tupinambá afirmavam que ela trazia notícia dos antepassados e não a matavam. Suas penas servem como preservativos contra a luxúria. Ao vir da puberdade, as moças indígenas assentavam-se sobre a pele retirada a um urutau. Para outras tribos o costume era varrer o chão com as penas da mãe-da-lua. Os carajá dizem que ela foi a moça Imaeró que tomou a forma do Urutau com ciúme de sua irmã Denaque que se casara com Tainacã, a estrela Vésper, tornado velho e alquebrado, e que pedira noiva e só Denaque o aceitara. Quando Imaeró viu Tainacã moço, forte e bonito, enlouqueceu de raiva e ficou sendo o urutau lúgubre. Para os indígenas do rio Buopé (Uaupés) afluente do rio Negro no Amazonas, foi o tuxaua Duiruna que se tornou urutau por ter sua mulher Ueundá se transformando no peixe pacutinga ou pacu-branco (Myleus rhomboidalis).”

The Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland/ A Lagarta de Alice nos País das Maravilhas

pigwhisperer — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 16:50:45 +0000

There is a tribe of these lovelies eating one of our Jasmine trees. They are, sadly, not smoking hookah’s and did not ask me, “Whoooo are youooo?”

Outra criatura de Alice no País das Maravilhas encontrada na fazenda. Achei ela comendo as folhas da nossa árvore de jasmim. Infelizmente, ela não estava fumando um cachimbo e não me deu nenhum conselho.

Coveting

pigwhisperer — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:27:44 +0000

I’ve decided to add a recurring segment to the blog about Things I Covet. I am a material girl. Living on a farm. I find myself drooling over items I see online, and coveting them. Except I can’t buy them because a) they would never arrive here and b) I would have no use for these items if they did arrive. But by God, a girl can troll the internet and dream.

So, here’s what I’ve been dreaming of lately. Penguin Classics cloth-bound books designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Gosh are they lovely! You don’t even need to read them. Why even crack the spines! I just want them to sit on a shelf and look pretty for me. A shelf in a bright, hip loft that I don’t own.

Diário Iberico: Great Jamon Starts with Breed and Feed

pigwhisperer — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:02:22 +0000

Doing Some Pig Whispering

The Area:
The Dehesa is a pasture area and a natural forest ecosystem that covers approximately 3 million acres of Spain and Portugal. In this area, Iberian pigs graze on mushrooms, herbs, grasses, pine nuts, chestnuts, and acorns or bellotas. The area is very dry throughout the year, with low humidity and cool nights. 4 months out of the year, from approximately October to late January, is acorn season. There are three kinds of acorns in the Dehesa: encina, quejigo, and alcornque. The soil of the Dehesa is not fertile enough for traditional agriculture.

The Breed:
Over time, the Iberian pig has adapted to the Dehesa. They have longer snouts, thinner bodies, and thinner ankles than their white pig counterparts. Ibericos have flat ears that cover their eyes to shade them from the sun while they forage. Pure Ibericos have a very long, slow growth period. In order to generate larger pigs in a shorter time period, Ibericos are now crossed with Duroc Jerseys, but only a 25% cross is allowed. In Spain, pigs are weighed in arrobas. One arroba equals approximately 11.5 kilos.

The Feed:
The Cebo or fattening period begins when pigs are 11-12 months, or 80-115 kilos. Pigs then eat for 3-5 months in order to gain approximately 50 more kilos. Some pigs are fed strictly man-made feed. Others are released into pasture to eat acorns. The acorn-fed pigs become the more expensive Iberico de Bellota hams

A Spanish Bellota or Acorn

Acorns contain oleic acid, which affects the pig meat’s fat and its taste. Pigs must wander the Dehesa and exercise in order to help fat deposits distribute throughout meat and not simply accumulate on the skin layer. A pig needs to eat 9.5 kilos of encina acorns to gain 1 kilo, 18 kilos of quejigo acorns to gain 1 kilo, and/or 14 kilos of alcornque acorns to gain 1 kilo. That is a lot of acrons over a 4 month period!

Differences in Ham Curing Methods and Pigs:
French and Italian cured hams are made from “white” pigs. These are the Landresse, Large White, and Duroc breeds. White pig meat is said to be sweeter than Iberico meat. But white pigs they do not have marbled meat like Ibericos, because they do not pasture graze or eat acorns. Because there is less marbling in white pig meat, it cures faster and runs the risk of drying out during a cure. French and Italian hams are cut to resemble a chicken drumstick, removing the hoof and hip bone. Spanish hams keep hoof and hip bone in tact. This is cultural and a matter of differing styles. I personally think the French and Italian hams look much prettier than Iberico hams. But the Iberico hams sure taste amazing!

Jamon from the Jabugo region of Spain

Diário Iberico: Madrid Food Porn

pigwhisperer — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 21:04:20 +0000

Jamonero in Madrid

We arrived in Madrid a little groggy, but resolved to stay awake in an effort to trick our jet lag. We accomplished this trickery by eating. And drinking. We went to Spain to gain an in-depth understanding of cured hams. So our first meal in Madrid was, you guessed it, jamon.

Hams are cured all over the world using slightly different methods. The French have Bayonne hams. The Italians have Prosciutto de Parma, Toscano, and Jambon de Bosses. In Portugal there is Jamon de Barrancos, which is very similar to Spain’s Jamon Iberico. In Spain there are several kinds of cured hams. The Iberico de Cebo (made from an Iberian pig fed man-made feed all of its life), Iberico de Recebo (made from an Iberian pig fed a combination of man-made feed and wild pasture during ts last months) and Iberico de Bellota (made from an Iberian pig finished exclusively with pasture grazing). There are also Spanish hams made from white (not Iberian) pigs that are called Jamon de Teruel, Trevelez, and Serrano depending on their area of origin.

We went to a great market in Madrid’s downtown and had our first sample of Jamon Iberico de Bellota. We learned that good Jamon should be thinly sliced and served minutes after slicing. It should always be served at room temperature, so that the fat melts in your mouth. Speaking of fat, it should be marbled throughout the ham’s meat—this is a sign that the pig is a true black-hoofed Iberian breed. The ham should be moist, never rubbery or stringy. And the flavors should be strong and nutty. (Much stronger than Italian prosciutto.) The best Jamon needs no seasoning, no side dishes, no dressings. Nor is it used as an accessory to a dish—it is not wrapped around chicken or scattered on pizzas. The best Jamon is served all by itself, and is eaten with your hands. It’s amazing food. And boy, did we eat a lot of it. (My pants barely buttoned by the end of our trip.)

Our first dinner

We visited factories, pig farms, butchers, bodegas, you name it. I even got to try my hand at slicing a Jamon, which is no easy task. (For events and parties, Spaniards hire professional slicers. There is even a ham slicing institute in Guijuelo, one of Spain’s ham capitals.) But I’m getting ahead of myself. More about all of that in the next few posts.

Jamon, here we come / Jamon, estamos chegando!

pigwhisperer — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 23:37:59 +0000

We are headed to Spain for 15 days to immerse ourselves in all things Jamon. Jamon is salt-cured ham. It sounds simple, but to produce a flavorful ham cured only in salt and essentially eaten raw takes time and practice. The Spanish have been curing hams for centuries. Their process depends upon the right breed of pig fed on right kinds of foods. It also depends upon patience.

On our farm we have pigs and plenty of patience. We also have questions about curing hams. Many of them. And who better to answer these questions than the masters themselves, the Spanish jamoneiros. During our first days in Spain, our guide will be an expert named Bosco (the brother-in-law of a friend) who will take us to ham-producing regions like Huelva, Jabugo, and Salamanca. Below is a map of traditional Jamon-producing regions.

Our hopes for the trip are high. We’d like to see some acorn-fed Iberico pigs. We’d like to unravel the mystery of mold: what kinds are good? What kinds of mold are dangerous or hallucinogens or both? We’d like to understand what makes the shoulder cure differently from the leg. We’d like to see a pig “sacrifice” as the Spanish call it. And we’d like to eat some great ham.

Since we are on a quest (hopefully not a quixotic one), I hope to meet one of my new idols in the food world, a Spanish farmer named Eduardo Sousa. He raises geese and creates humane foie-gras. He lives for his geese, he listens to them, he cares for them and loves them. And in honor of his geese he creates great food. Here’s a TED video where Chef Dan Barber talks about Sousa.

I probably won’t post while we are away, but there will be many posts when we return from our Jamon quest.

Agora em Português:
Estamos indo para a Espanha por 15 dias para mergulhar em todas as coisas relacionadas a Jamon. Jamon é presunto curado no sal. Parece simples, mas para produzir um bom presunto curado apenas com sal e comido cru, leva tempo e prática. Os espanhóis tem curado presuntos para séculos. Seu processo depende da raça do porco e a sua alimentção. Também depende de sal e paciência.

Nós também temos porcos e muita paciência. E, alem disso, temos muitas perguntas. E quem seria melhor para responder a estas perguntas de que os próprios mestres (chamados jamoneiros em espanhol). Durante nossos primeiros dias em Espanha, nosso guia será um mestre chamado Bosco (o cunhado de um amigo) que nos levará para as regiões produtoras como Huelva, Jabugo e Salamanca. Abaixo está um mapa de regiões produtoras de Jamon na Espanha.

Nossas esperanças para a viagem são grandes. Nós gostaríamos de ver alguns suínos alimentados com bolota Iberico. Nós gostaríamos de descobrir o mistério do fungo: que tipos são bons? Que tipos de fungos são perigosas ou alucinógenos? Gostaríamos de entender o que faz a pá cura de forma diferente do pernil. E nós gostaríamos de comer presunto, claro!

Quando estamos em nossa busca espero encontrar um dos meus ídolos no mundo gastronomico, um fazendeiro espanhol chamado Eduardo Sousa. Ele cria gansos e faz foie-gras. Ele vive por seus gansos. E, em homenagem ao seu gansos, Sr. Sousa cria comida boa e saudavel. Aqui está um vídeo onde o chef americano Dan Barber fala de Sousa.

Eu provavelmente não vou escrever no blog quando estamos na Espanha, mas escreverá muitos posts quando voltamos da nossa busca Jamonica!