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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Jones Bacon from Missouri


From Missouri -- Jones Heritage Bacon




Welcome to Jones Heritage Farms
"Located in beautiful Cape Girardeau County, Missouri we are a family-owned farm using old fashioned farming methods to produce the tastiest and healthiest food you can buy. Our old fashioned methods eschew modern industrial agricultural practices such as animal confinement, the feeding of animal byproducts and the use of antibiotics and growth hormones because we are more concerned about healthy, happy animals and great tasting food than maximizing production. All of our animals are raised outdoors and fed an all natural diet of grass and grain. The end result is better tasting food that is better for you and for the environment." - Jones Heritage Farm







Jones Heritage Hickory Smoked Cured Bacon...$11.99 / 1 lb package

Our all natural favorite from the farm—
For centuries the most flavorful pork has come from the Berkshire breed of hogs. Known as “Kurobuta” or “black pig” in Japan where it is considered a delicacy, Berkshire pork is well known in culinary circles for its unsurpassed combination of juiciness, flavor and tenderness. One taste and you’ll see why this breed has retained its popularity for over 300 years. Try our Berkshire Pork today and discover all the natural flavor you have been missing.


Featured in Feast Magazine -- 
"What make Jones Heritage Farm's meats special are the animals' genetics and the way the animals are raised. "The meat from heritage-breed hogs has that old fashioned pork flavor that was prevalent before pork became ‘the other white meat,'" Jones says.


"Heritage animals require way more labor and way more time," says Jones. "You can't produce all-natural meat with confinement, so we have to give a lot more time and land to each animal than with conventional farming. When they're in confinement, they end up needing antibiotics. And then they're not all-natural."


The extra attention these animals receive doesn't just produce healthier, more flavorful, antibiotic-free meat. It helps preserve heritage livestock breeds. "The reason heritage breeds [have gone] out of favor, and some have become extinct, is because they don't do well in mass production conditions," Jones says.


"Berkshire is the Kobe beef of pork," says Jones. Berkshires make for the best pork belly and the intramuscular marbling in their loin is ideal. Jones is one of the few Red Wattle breeders in the area - and in the nation. He likes Red Wattle pork for its lean, beefy texture; flavorful dark red to purple meat; and great marbling. According to Jones, the breed is considered critically endangered, with fewer than 2,000 Red Wattles in the world.


"I heard it's Mario Batali's favorite pig," he says. "If Batali likes it, I figured I should try it."


The pigs are given a lot of room to grow: two acres of land per eight pigs. Jones' hogs rotate pastures until they reach 75 to 100 pounds, and then they're put into the woods to forage on fungi, leaves, nuts and other natural goodies. Unlike some other farmers, Jones allows his pigs to root, which is part of their natural instinct. Although it's destructive to the land, he says it's important to the quality of his product to allow his pigs to live naturally.


"It takes a number of things to make a pig that produces high-quality meat," he says. "You've got to keep the pig from being stressed out because stress leads to illness, blood-spots in its meat and no cooperation from the animal. Confinement, heat, lack of food and water, and a lot of new people around who it isn't familiar with will all stress a pig out. So we make sure our pigs have water and a lot of it all the time. And they need shade and a waller, or a mud hole, to keep themselves cool. We'll give a pig antibiotics if it gets sick - I'm not going to let an animal die - but we won't sell it because then [the meat's] not all-natural. But we rarely have a sick pig."


Seventy-five percent of the farm's sales come from pork products. The Berkshires produce two litters a year with about eight to 10 piglets in each litter. The Red Wattles have larger litters, and, according to Sauer, they're better moms. The farm relies on these good moms to keep business booming.


"Pigs used to be called ‘mortgage lifters,'" says Jones, "because small farms could make a lot of money off a single litter, and you usually get two [litters] a year." Profitability isn't their only attractive characteristic, however. As Jones puts it, "Pigs are easy to like."
Feast Magazine October 2011

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