Pork Milk?

We are a fairly modern farm in regards to our use of the internet and online presence.  So if somebody is searching for something online in terms of farming and Utah, we often come up in some of the top search results. This means when somebody has a wacky question such as, oh I don't know, something like, "Can I come and milk one of your pigs?", we would be the farm that they call to ask such a thing.  This really happened!  Turns out, there is a radio show in Pennsylvania called The Mediocre Show.  On their show, they have a segment called, "One meat to rule them all." where they have been posing the question, "If you could only eat one meat for the rest of your life, what would you choose?"  If a person were to choose beef, that means that they would also get milk, cheese, and other dairy products.  Choose poultry and you would get eggs etc... Obviously pigs don't lay eggs and we don't get milk from them...or do we, rather, could we?

While pork is delicious and offers all kinds of yummy products like bacon, pork chops, ham, sausage, salami etc... there isn't an extra byproduct like there is with beef and poultry placing pork at a seemingly disadvantage.  Eric Tomorrow, one of the shows hosts and avid pork fan has been trying to promote pork as "the meat to rule them all."  However as the leader of "Team Pork", Eric has struggled to convince others that pork is the way to go.  Time and time again, beef has beat out pork because of the dairy that is inherent to the beef choice.  So Eric posed the question, why can't/don't we have pork milk?  He decided that the only way to find out was to try some pork milk.

Apparently, The Mediocre Show has a strong following here in Utah.  Here, they found that there are several pig farms in Utah, our farm being one of them.  This past weekend they were in Utah for a special event for the Utahns that follow their show .  They decided that while here, they would try and milk a pig.  When they called me about it, I thought it sounded kind of funny and agreed to let them come to our farm.  They hired a camera man to film their adventure. On Sunday, they showed up ready to prove once and for all that pork milk was not only a possibility but a superior and delicious product good enough to convert Team Beef members to their cause.  Milking a pig proved more difficult than anticipated!  There were a lot of laughs and witty one liners.  Eric was determined however to try some pork milk.  After I repeatedly failed to draw milk from the pig, Eric nuzzled his way in between the nursing piglets and drank milk right from the pig!  He proclaimed that it was delicious with a hint of bacon.  Good as it may have tasted, we concluded that the reason we don't have pork milk is that logistically, it is too difficult to acquire.  We would like to thank our good friends and neighbors the Petersens for allowing us to try milking their Tamworth pigs since we didn't have any pigs that were lactating at the time. You can read more about their Tamworths here.

Eric, his lovely wife Hope (co-host), and the rest of their crew were a lot of fun.  We had a great time with them and hope they will stop by next time they are in Utah.  They will be posting a video of their adventures on their website.  I will post a link to it on this blog when it becomes available.  Meanwhile you can listen to an audio clip of their pork milk adventure that they shared the following morning on the X96 Radio From Hell morning show.  You can find their podcast from the 7am hour on 21 March 2011 by clicking here.  After a couple of minutes of talk about their burly beards, they talk about their visit to our farm and milking a pig.  It is quite comical as you can expect if you have ever listened to Kerry, Bill, and Gina on X96.  As owner of a family farm, I must warn that not all of the content is suitable for young listeners.  I do appreciate Bill Allred's complimentary plug for our farm.  (His family visited our farm last year.)

Every once in a while we get an unusual request, this one has topped them all...so far.  Who knew being a farmer could offer such fun?  If we ever figure out a way to milk those pigs, we just might offer pork milk cheese! : )