Photo of Earl and the wild pig prosciutto taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Fri 11.20.09 - Today, neighbor Earl and I decided it was time to take down one of the two pig legs that have been hanging to cure in his garage to see if they were ready to be eaten yet. Earl was the guinea pig to see if it was good and not moldy/botulism-y/etc and he determined it was ready to be eaten without harm, the point that his sister and friend both had slices.

My brother and his friends went hunting up at Tejon Ranch in February of 2009 and bagged two wild pigs*. I requested and received two of the legs so that I could see if I could make prosciutto.

Wild, organic, slow food experiment = successful.

I plan on taking the other leg down around Christmas time.

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* Wild pigs or boars in North America are not native, but are escapees from farms. Most of California's boar / wild pig population are domestic pigs that escaped from Central Valley farms from the 1880s -1920s. Unfortunately, they are a menace to wild landscapes and are environmentally unsound to native ecosystems, so California has a 365 day 24/7 hunting season open on wild pigs to help restore the native wild space and keep the pig population down.