The World’s Greatest Ham May Come From...New Jersey?

msn ^

[mylife]

Foodies go to great lengths to get their lips on the world’s finest ham. But if you wouldn’t transport prize boar sperm from Portugal, invest $200,000 to import your own pigs, raise litters free range on organic grains and imported acorns, and dry age their hind legs by hand for years—well, then you’re not as obsessed as Rodrigo Duarte, owner and butcher at Caseiro e Bom.

The son of pig farmers in Portugal, Duarte grew up raising and butchering hogs, but didn’t have the opportunity to open his own place until he emigrated to Newark, New Jersey’s Portuguese enclave, the Ironbound district, where he worked at a supermarket meat counter while saving for his own butcher shop. “I didn’t really sleep back then,” Duarte says. “I worked long shifts, then stayed up all night making my own sausages.”

[mylife]

You go Duarte!!

[mylife]

[mylife]

In 2010, he bought a bodega and converted the back into a smokehouse and every inch of ceiling space into a pork lover’s paradise, dangling dozens of ham legs you have to duck beneath to approach the counter. Then he bought a farm where he raised free-range domestic pigs, before becoming the only person in the United States ever allowed to import and breed true black Portuguese Alentejano hogs.

[rfp1234]

No, Bill Shatner is Canadian.

[mylife]

Ooops, this is an excerpt, more at link.

[mylife]

[Rebelbase]

You Can't Hurt Ham.

[central_va]

Worlds Greatest Ham from NJ?

[posterchild]

I tried some of that acorn fed pork in alentejo in 2017. It was so awesome I mentioned it to a couple local pig farmers. Neither seemed to think it acquiring some and raising them on acorns would be worth the trouble.

[mylife]

I never thought acorns made em that tasty, they dont make deer tasty.

[gundog]

New Jersey? Talk about lookin’ up a hog’s butt for a ham sandwich.

[mylife]

;)

[G Larry]

I am NOT from New Jersey!

[Freedumb]

Not Taylor Ham?

[mylife]

Calm down big guy!!

[mylife]

No Sir..

[Vaquero]

The worse thing they ever did to pork was breed it as ‘The Other White Meat’.

[GaltAdonis]

No, “Not Taylor Ham” - Pork Roll! :-)

[Swanks]

Taylor ham, yo. You must be one of those 609 area codes

[rxsid]

When we want a gourmet ham for a special occasion, we always go with Nueske's.