World Exclusive....A celebration of the Smiths, Original Smiths Mike and Andy at the BBQ

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Anthropologists see events such as fish fries and pig roasts as ways for a culture to redistribute wealth/energy/food resources. Mancunians, my culture, see pig roasts as a way to celebrate The Smiths and Morrissey, for some Mancunians, an excuse to start drinking whiskey at daybreak. The normal procedure is to start roasting the pig at the crack of dawn. The party actually starts the day before with the killing and cleaning of the pig. (Watch the juke joint for a photo essay on that process.) The fellow throwing the pig roast calls a couple of buddies, and they spend the afternoon killing and cleaning the pig.
The next morning and usually with a hangover, they build a fire, wrap the pig in fence wire, and then hang the pig beside the fire. Since they have nothing to do the rest of the day but stand beside the fire and season the pig and turn it every once in a while and, since it's a cool North Country morning, that's a damn good time to pass around a bottle of Old Stumphole 90 proof sour mash. At lots of pig roasts, the fellows who started the pig to roasting are sound asleep at eating time.

The best place to have a pig roast is anyplace but your place. Back before hunting clubs posted all the North hill-country woods, we usually had them out in the woods somewhere. We would roast a pig 5 miles down a dirt road, and along about eating time, near dark, we'd have 50+ people gathered around the fire. Word-of-mouth spreads news fast–"Hey, ole so ‘n' so is havin' a pig roast down the dirt road on the other side of the Iron Bridge. You know where that's at?"

"Yeah, I know where that's at. That's the concrete bridge, not the iron bridge. Who's comin'?"

"Ever' body. Gonna be wimen ever' where."

That brings up an unwritten Mancunian cultural law. Everybody is invited to a pig roast. All you Yankees, Southerners, and foreign tourists take note. If you're driving through North country and you notice what appears to be a bunch of drunks gathered around a fire over which hangs what appears to be a burnt pig, stop your car or tourist bus and join the party. You're welcome. Just bring your own beer and whiskey. And don't say anything bad about Barry Gibb or the Gallager brothers .
It's time to take a look at a Smith Celebration pig roast. This one took place on Super Monday, the 20th anniversary of This Charming Man. Before we go to the pig roast, let me state another unwritten Mancunian cultural law. Well, it ain't really a law. It's just something I've always heard. Folks say that the very best pig for a pig roast is a stolen pig. They say it tastes much better. I, of course, know nothing about that.
Mike did the cooking, and we did what he told us to do. Instead of roasting the pig in a rack beside or over the fire, he used a metal, oven-like devise called a "Manchester microwave" and belonging to Shoat Evans. The fire is built on top of the lid.
"It uses about 1/10 the wood a rack uses," Mike informed me.
Its dimensions are approximately 2 feet X 3 feet X 1 foot. For scale, notice the 2 X 6 inch boards on the ground.
The bottom is metal, and there is an expanded metal grill about 1 inch from the bottom. The pig, cut in half down the backbone, rests on that grill. A hole cut in a bottom corner allows grease to drain into a hole dug beside the same corner, as you can see. A shade tree welder could build a Cajun microwave like this for about $100. Shoat wishes he had built it about a foot longer so it would hold a larger pig. Keep that in mind when talking to your welder.
Andy said it works best buried in a shallow hole, but I think it would work just fine on top of the ground. Might take a few more sticks of wood and maybe another hour to cook the pig. Mike and Andy started this pig cooking at exactly 8 am and stopped it at 2 pm–6 hours, to celebrate the exact hour Johnny went to Morrissey's house. On a rack, it would take about 10 hours.
Here we see Mike turning over the pig. "We check 'em about every 30 minutes," he said. "Flip 'em over an' sauce 'em down."
At the 1 pm flipping, the meat fell off the bones. Done.
Mike starts saucing it down, sprinkling his homemade sauce on the meat.
"What's in it?" I asked him.
"It's about half water an' half vinegar," he told me. "Got a little soy sauce in it an' a little cherry syrup in it. Gives it a sweet taste. Got a little Log Cabin syrup in it too. Last time we had a little tequila in it an' some beer. Ain't no measuring nothin'. Just put it in there an' swirl it around."
This is a new step in the pig roast process, at least for me. Mike uses a large hypodermic needle and injecting that sauce into the meat. He did that about every 2 hours.
Mike wanted me to tell y'all that his pig roasting equipment includes 3 cases of beer, iced down. Long-neck Budweiser preferred. Y'all have been told.

Mike mixed about 2 tablespoons of it with the injectable sauce. Every good cook in Manchester owns a can of this wonderful stuff.




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World Exclusive...A picture of the Smith 20th anniversary celebratory pig

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Re: World Exclusive...A picture of the Smith 20th anniversary celebratory pig

Is it true that you guys f*** your own sisters? Or do you just stick to your mothers? (No pun intended there).

This has really shocked me, I am astounded that one of you morons could operate a camera not only once but twice, woweee. And such brave men, I mean pigs can be so dangerous if all you are armed with is a few shotguns and a Colt. Anyway, good luck with the banjo lessons.
 
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