165-Pound Pig Cooked, Consumed, Contemplated

Step one: Raise a pig. Name it Wilbur, or Charlotte, or Bubba if you’d prefer. Give it a long, good life.

Pick it out of a lineup when the time is right. Make the first cut. Then gut with honor, lifting the glittering organs to the heavens.

Gather some friends. Ready an oven and spit, haul in a case (or five) of beer. It’s going to be a long night.

Clad in a red apron, New Haven writer and barbecue junkie Jack Hitt explained to a crowd gathered in his East Rock backyard for a Carolina-style pig roast Saturday that making slow-cooked pork isn’t meant to be a solitary activity. It starts well in advance, when the pig is carefully picked out, slaughtered and gutted, prepared for placement over a clay oven and wrapped for the night. Not too unlike activities at another organization he loves.

That organization is the Institute Library. Hitt was addressing over 100 of its members and fans who, undeterred by early-evening showers, had gathered with their ponchos, slickers and umbrellas at his home for the IL’s second annual Whole Hog Pig Roast. In all, the IL estimates that it grossed (not netted) $11,451.26 from the event. 

The pig in question (pictured above), an organic sow from Terra-Firma Farm in Stonington, had been laid to roast at 5 p.m. on Friday. Gutted, she weighed 165 pounds. A team of pork enthusiasts kept watch over her for 24 hours as meat darkened and fat dripped, feeding coals into the slow-roasting (200 – 220 degrees) oven for the entire night and the entire next day.

For Hitt, the roast is ritual: Going the whole hog is more than a vestige of his South Carolinian upbringing. It’s what the Institute Library is all about.

”I grew up in South Carolina, and we cooked pigs for the simple reason that most of us could never afford to eat in a restaurant when we were teenagers. So a pig roast … was what you did to have fun on the weekends. These old foods date back to a time when the kitchen was on 24 hours a day … [now] we cook a whole hog on a special occasion. So it does require a village to cook a whole meal. We spend so much time in these mediated environments … before a computer screen, largely alone. I think we’ve lost a lot, and having these moments where we have these random collisions and unexpected encounters … is what a good pig roast really is,” he said.

Brendan Bashin-Sullivan (pictured), a Yale senior who works on the university’s Sustainable Food Project and volunteers at the Yale Farm, agreed that the roast was a perfect vehicle to celebrate community. Saturday, he reveled in spending a different kind of all-nighter than his peers. ​“I enjoyed watching the transformation happen,” he said. ​“We’ve gone from drinking beers in the backyard to a full-fledged roast. The fact that the whole thing has been filled with conviviality and sociality … that’s the spirit of the roast. You can’t roast a pig by yourself.”

The truth is that you can – Caseus Chef and Owner Jason Sobocinski (pictured) has, exactly once – but it’s a miserable experience. ​“You don’t want to do it alone. You don’t want to do it without beer, either,” Sobocinski said with a laugh as he deep-fried pig skin in a deep pot of sizzling oil. ​“It’s why I named the beer company Black Hog, because … it’s everything. You’ve got a group of people, and everyone’s eating off the same animal. One animal, the entire animal has given its life, its bones, its skin … you want to honor this animal.”

“Jack cooks this pig and brings everybody around it. It’s an education,” added Wayne Chambliss, who took a red-eye from Portland, Oregon, to arrive in time to take place in the roast.

It was all about honoring the pig for attendees at the event too, smiles spreading across the backyard as they dove into plates piled high with pulled pork, collard greens, macaroni and cheese and a sticky, meaty rice.

”In my opinion what makes the meat so unique is its texture: soft, malleable, sinuous. Wet and dry, crunchy and smooth … this awesome synergy. And sharing the pig with everyone … It’s a new way to meet people,” said Tom Breen (pictured), who joined the Institute Library after meeting members at their spring fundraiser.

“A pig roast brings different types of people to one location to socialize over food in a much more relaxed setting than, say, a bar or a restaurant even. And I did try some, even as a vegetarian. It was good!” added IL Membership Services Coordinator Sam Perduta (pictured).

“The consumption of the pig … the celebration of the pig, the unveiling is the part that we get to share in. It’s a really tremendous thing to see something that took 24 hours to prepare,be brought out and served up to us … Pig roasts are an ancient tradition to bring people together,” said New Havener Rob Narracci (pictured with Gina Narracci and Ethel Berger).

“I think preparing food is a gift of love, and this thing is an example of that. That he [Hitt] prepared this to support this institution, and then most of the people that are here support this institution … It is a huge community event,” added Berger.

Meanwhile Bennett Lovett-Graff waxed poetic on pork: ​“The great innovation of early Christianity was getting everyone to eat together. Around the table, everyone is equal. The Institute Library is less a library and more an institute … it focuses on bringing people together. There’s a storied tradition here that I think people are trying to come at in the 21st century.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Debby Applegate kept the message simpler. At the end of the day – which it definitely was by the time the roast was over – this was about making new friends and catching up with old ones over down-to-earth food.

She did have one regret, though.

“I was talking to people, and I didn’t get any pig!” she cried.

From behind her, Jack Hitt appeared with a heavy ziplock bag of pulled pork, steam still collecting on its inside.

She hugged him, and laughed a throaty, hearty laugh, just slightly hoarse after spending an evening talking with friends.

“Thank you for this,” she said.