Thread: Wild pork, any good for ham?

Smell and taste. It’s a very specific kind of gaminess that isn’t pleasant on the palate. You can taste it and smell it as it goes up the back of your nose from the throat. None of us like it, and we are all very open minded when it comes to food from pretty much any animal or plant, prepared in any way. The pigs I am talking about are all Ruapehu District pigs.

It’s interesting because we had a conversation about this a while back over a dinner of roast feral pig that I shot over the road from me here in the northern Waikato. We don’t get many pigs here, and those that do show themselves look quite different to the ones down on the hill country farms in the Ruapehu. A lot longer in the body and a lot less Razorback. We knew about this pig for quite awhile before I eventually shot it as I wanted it to be as clean as possible - it was staying put at the bottom of the paddock against the native. We wondered if it was an escaped captain cooker from somewhere, but our enquiries came to nought.

Anyway, that pig was absolutely delicious and a world apart from any of those that I have caught with dogs down in the Ruapehu.