Hi! I've been watching this topic for a couple days, digging through my files, preparing to type an essay. I could go miles on the subject, but because I'm a slow typest [Mrs. Clausen's 10th grade typing, 1969] I'll shorten it up.
There are 3 _shires I know of:
Hampshire: extremly lean, and slow growing. The packers love them, because they hate fat. Sometimes contain the "n" gene which can cause a purge of their moisture when frozen and thawed. I think this breed gave frozen pork a bad name and I have eliminated it from my herd.
Yorkshire: "The Mother Breed" is their motto. Long, friendly girls with a great personality. They milk like a Holstien, but unfortuanatly Holsteins are not the best for eating, and neither are Yorks.
I'm guessing the breed GuiyserQ read about is the Berkshire like TaktEZ thought. He is right on. Dark well marbeled meat is in high demand in Japan;
The top 1/3 is exported;
The middle 1/3 goes to restraunts;
Guess who gets the rest?
Berks are an old breed like most others. They are high in meat traits that consumers [not packers] want.
They are hard to raise. Short and fat, slow growing, poor conception, short heat cycle, small litters, and poor milkers. Their temprament is something else. They will do a summersault in the alley to avoid going forward. Really stressy, I'm amazed their meat is so good. No wonder they demand such a premium for their meat.
Right now I'm running a Chester White [sow] bred to a Berkshire. The Chesters are a great meat quility breed, but produce bigger litters,etc. Another old breed, they are gaining alot of popularity lately.
"We have to eat them to save them" is the motto of the heritage breeds.
I do have a herd of 24 purebred PEDIGREED Berksire sows [females] that I am breeding for myself, and the balance will go to my butchers company, Berkshire Meats,[
www.berkshiremeats.com ] They also supply the Berks for Lobells [
www.lobels.com ]in New York.
When we run out of our own meat for our catering business, we buy whole frozen shoulders from Bershire Meats, which only yeild 50% [perfect!] but are to die for.
Our website is:
www.prairiepridebbq.com or
www.prairiepridefarm.com .
Remember, what we have available right now is a Berkshire X Chester White cross.
I have found that if you start with a good product, it will be very forgiving, and you can get away with many shortcuts while cooking, like thawing first.
Oops! I've been typing over an hour. I didn't even mention the Ultimate ph, color scores,or drip loss scores that the Berkshire, Chester White and Durocs excell in.
Roger
