Expert: Keith Patton - 3/3/2008

Question
My husband slaughtered our pig and we would like to know how you get the wild taste out of the meat? Would you soak it like you do deer meat?

Answer
Michelle:

The "taste" you are talking about is called boar taint.  It has to do with the fat of the pig giving a disagreeable taste to the meat.  In some countries they castrate the pig to prevent it.  It stems, if I recall correctly from too much saturated fats which oxidize quickly.
In any event, you might try trimming the meat very well to remove any fat.  If you soak it you can try a number of things.  You can try buttermilk, or marinades of beer or wine.

Unforunately all these soaks do is dilute the flavor not really remove it.  A membrane reaction takes place whereby nature tries to equalize a solution.  What happens is flavors from the liquid go into the meat and visa versa.  Nature hates inequality so it tries to balance things by moving compounds from one to the other.  If you highly season the marinade or soak, more of it will move into the meat and replace some of the off flavor.  Trimming the fat is the best sure way to get rid of as much of the off flavor as possible.

Keith