Some of the things we take for granted in the UK but are difficult to get in Jos are decent cheese, ham and bacon. Apart from keeping a cow (perhaps when we move to TCNN) there's not much I can do about the lack of cheese except save up to pay the large amount it costs to get the occasional chunk. However, bacon and ham are another matter.
Ali Robinson (out here with Wycliffe and whose parents actually led some of the courses Fraser and I did when we were at the Wycliffe Centre in the 1990s) has been experimenting with curing her own ham and bacon. She's an abattoir veteran and kindly agreed to take a group of us on a field trip to buy pork and then cure it at home. We tried curing it a few weeks ago but the ham started to go green after a couple of days. Deciding that discretion was advisable, I gave mine a decent burial, unlike some other hammers who cut off the green and ate it anyway. Obviously I haven't been out here long enough yet.
We decided we wanted to try again and this time do it from the beginning.
Once you've been to the meat market you'll never look at a butcher's shop in the same way. There a single fly in the sterile environment of a shop with refrigerators is cause for concern. On the stall, as long as you go in the morning when the meat hasn't been sitting in the heat all day and there isn't a swarm of flies you feel OK.
Every single part of the animal is available, from the horns to the heart to fillet steak (if you know how to identify it). Ali is greatly practised in poking and prodding and telling the stall holders which particular bit of the carcase she wants. It was a real education and all cuts of meat cost the same - N800/kg (about £3.40). There was a pig area, beef area, goat area and sometimes a lamb area, although pigs are only slaughtered on Saturdays. It's one way to ensure your meat is fresh; it doesn't come much fresher than being alive that morning. I did feel sorry for the solitary cow tethered to a tree. It looked rather concerned and with good cause.
With our meat packed into the ubiquitous black plastic bags we left. I still had curing salt left over from the previous unsuccessful attempt so I took my pork (and the fillet steak for tea which I couldn't resist) back home. The hardest part of this process is trimming the meat. I felt a great sense of achievement that I only had to call for the first aid kit once. Sharpening knives makes a difference, it was a good clean cut all the way through, just have to hope it doesn't get infected so my finger drops off. The rest of the family had better appreciate what I went through so they can have bacon butties.
Now the bacon is in one bag in the fridge and the ham curing in another. It'll be two weeks before the ham is ready but we'll be able to eat bacon next weekend. Needless to say I'll be keeping a close eye out for any colour changes this time and be praying that there's plenty of electricity to keep the fridge running. Next time you simply buy a packet of bacon or some slices of ham at the supermarket I hope you truly appreciate it.
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| Our beef stall |
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| The buckets are for rinsing the innards |
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| Ali (dark hair) checking the pork |
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