Pricing out the Pig

It seems like the pork posts will never end.  And they wouldn't if I waited until all our sausage was mixed up and our hams were fully cured, but I need to get some finality in the pork butchering day. Here are the totals from our hog butchering weekend (two weekends ago):

Loin: 15 lbs.
Tenderloin: 2 lbs.
Roasts:  36 lbs.
Ham: 13 lbs.
Ribs: 11 lbs.
Ground: 51 lbs.
Liver: 7 lbs.
Lard: 6 lbs.
Jowl: 4 lbs.
Bacon: 32 lbs.

For a Grant Total of 170 pound of pork goodness!  I didn't even include the 20 or so pounds of meaty bones for soup stock or the countless treats and future suppers for the Giant Sloppy Dog.

But I also have to admit that we did waste more than I would have liked to.  I didn't save the hocks to smoke (but Charlie was a very happy, hock-chewing dog).  I didn't clean out the intestines to make our own sausage casings.  The head never made it to "head cheese".  And I didn't even tan the hide to make footballs.  Instead we decided to pay tribute to the Pork God by placing the odds & ends and other remnants on a wooden altar and set it ablaze so the smoke from the burnt offerings would rise into the heavens to appease the Pork God.  In other words, we tossed the guts & stuff into a huge burn pile and lit it.

So now we know the amount of meat, lets look at the amount of money:

Yummy the Pig: $240
Feed: $90
Pig-Sitting: $50
Total: $380

So even if I just divided the price of the pig into the total poundage of meat, we're at $2.24 per pound.  Not bad, not bad at all.  But since I'm occasionally a bit anal, I went to the local supermarket and got prices (some on sale, some not) on the various cuts of pork.  You know, just to figure out how much we would have paid had we bought all that meat at the store....and so I could remind myself that it is, in fact, worth all the work.  That "Grocery Store" number was $587.....a two hundred dollar savings!

I'm a happy bacon-eat'n, pork chop-grill'n, ham-snacking gal.