Kentucky Derby Party

Saturday May 3

Ever since the Divine Miss Williams introduced us to the custom, we have celebrated Kentucky Derby Day, the first Saturday in May. This time we had a crowd over for a potluck supper, featuring the traditional mint juleps (luckily there's a lot of mint to thin out in our garden) and elaborate hats (even Derbies).

As usual, we ran a pool: put a dollar in a hat (hopefully one nobody's wearing), choose a favored runner from another hat (ditto), plus a bonus long-shot of your choice (depending on how many people there are; we had eight for the 20 horses running). The winner takes home the lot, or the hat. Once our cat Timothy won, on a horse called Real Quiet; but this time Archie scooped the pool with Big Brown.

Then supper. We had put out a number of snacks, olives, nuts, etc., and of course wine and water, to keep from going julep-mad. Russel and Kathy brought wine and delicious pickled mushrooms, despite being in the midst of moving house. Liz made a creamy leek quiche, Archie and Sharon brought wild-rice and carrot pilaf, and Holt did a batch of polenta.

The centerpiece was wild boar loin, done two ways, both by Holt. The boar itself was provided by our huntin' brother-in-law, David, whose prowess with bow and with rifle we have celebrated throughout this blog; we love to cook the critters he shoots. This one was from Texas, I believe, weighed 350 lbs, and each side of the loin was about three pounds. So it was some big pig.

One doesn't often get a chance to cook fresh (okay, flash-frozen) wild boar, so we trawled the web for recipes.
One, a gen-u-wine Eye-talian recipe was a disaster. It's intended for leg of boar and we assumed that it would work on loins as well. They were braised whole, as in several other recipes we'd seen and all I can say is that the guests very kindly refrained from resoling their boots with the resulting slices.
The recipe is here: http://www.frasi.net/ricette/ricetta5935.htm
We only mention it to warn you: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
The problem is that wild boar has even less fat than a regular domestic pork and pork loins, too, are very easy to overcook and dry out. However, wild boar sushi was not a option.

The other recipe, where the boar is cut into big cubes and stewed worked a treat. It's from an organic farm in England,
http://www.graigfarm.co.uk/wild_boar_recipes.html
In some ways it reminds us of our favorite pork stew with porcini from Marcella Hazan via Don and Martha. But no matter what you do, he meat is always going to be denser and chewier than regular pig.

There's a folk song that sums it up:

Razorback steak, razorback steak,
Lost all my teeth on that razorback steak.
It's tough as can be, made a man out of me.
Give me some more of that razorback steak.

If you think it's tender, you're crazy
You can't stick your fork in the gravy
Razorback steak, razorback steak,
Give me some more of that razorback steak.

We ended the whole shebang with Julie's scrumptious lime meringue pie. It went very well with the bourbon in the juleps.