About to receive half a pig - suggestions on cuts welcome

[zlorfik]

Hi folks, I recently put in an order for half a pig from a local producer. These pigs are free-range Yorkshire pigs and the meat quality is supposed to be crazy. The farm sent me a request for butchering instructions, and while I have my own ideas,  I wanted to hear yours. here are the recommendations they sent:

"Blade Shoulder: The shoulder is much smaller than the leg. It is recommended as 1 larger or you can have 2 smaller shoulder roasts depending on the side of the side. These can be roasted and carved or long/slow roasted to create pulled pork.

Arm Shoulder: recommended as shoulder chops.

Spare Rib: cut as side ribs.  Note these are not back ribs.

Side (Belly): recommended cured and smoked and cut into bacon strips. Your option is to have the belly as side pork (not cured and smoked). You can also choose to not have the bacon sliced, but left whole and you cut it yourself (although it is frozen making it less convenient).

Loin: You can have it cut all into loin chops, there are quite a few which can make for many nice dinners. You can also have some of it turned into loin roasts. You need to specify size if you want roasts, either  2-3 lbs, 3-4 lbs, or 4-5 lbs. It is possible to have the tenderloin removed from the loin, but that, in my opinion, results in chops which are inferior. You can also have the back ribs cut from the loin, but again, you sacrifice the quality of the chops making them boneless.

Leg: this is where hams come from, they are cured and smoked and can be cut into 1 huge, 2 large (halved) or 3 small hams (quartered). The option is "fresh ham" which is not cured and smoked. If you want fresh ham, you can also have leg steak centre cut as well as roasts.

Hocks: a side of pork yields 2-4 pork hocks. The option here is to have them smoked or not.

Sausage: the bits and trimmings are made into sausage. We will take the trimmings from all the sides of pork, and have them made into Mild Italian Sausage. No one side contains enough pork to make sausage as you need about 15 lbs to make a batch. The mild Italian contains spice only. None of the sausage would contain filler, other than Ashton Glen Pork."

Now my own thoughts are, I will turn all the belly into bacon, I would like the blade shoulder in 2 for pulled pork, and I would like the loin cut properly for british bacon, aka back bacon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bacon.JPG The rest of the loin would be great as pork chops. I wanted the ham cut in 3, I'd like to try curing and smoking them myself. The hocks I will use for traditional recipes. At the same time though I wanted some roasts and some ground meat for sausage, so I am torn. .

Note as well, they are leaving the crackling on everything.

[GusRobin]

I would get the belly uncured and cure it yourself and make your own bacon. I would also get the ham uncured.