The Banner-Democrat., 1900-06-30
ODD PORK EXPORTS.

Pigs Ears ana figs Ahts A"o"s e"0
Things Sent to Tropical Countries.
Among the great quantities of Amer
ican pork products exported there are
some odd items. Besides the more or
less familiar shoulders, hams, backs,
ribs, loins and bellies, there are also
exported in solid packages, as in bar
rels and tierces, pigs heads, tongues,
livers, jowls, tails, feet, trimmings.
and ears. For example: In ship
ment of pork products to San Domingo |
by an American packing house, last |
week, there were included five tierces
of pigs tails.
Such shipments are of course not
nearly SO common as those OF the
other parts of the animal, but pigs
tails and pigs ears are not unusual,
but constant and regular articles OF
shipment. American pork products
in general are shipped all over the
world; these odd products are scat
tered around the world, too. The
market for them, however, is chiefly
in tropical countries.
Pigs heads are sold in this country.
and pigs feet are familiar here, and
there may be found here in the season
on restaurant bills of fare jowl and
spinach. Tropical countries take all
these things, either salted, picked or
smoked in quantities; and they take
besides the ears and tails, for the eat
ing of which they have apparently
formed a habit In these countries
the ears and tails sell for something
less than the regular cuts of the pork,
but they are nevertheless regarded
more or less as delicacies and tidblts.
Pigs tails, for instance. bring as good
a price as oxtails do here, and pigs
ears sell for more than pigs tails. In
the countries to which they are ex-
ported pigs tails and pigs ears are
sold by the pound. They may be
eaten separately as any pork OF other
meat food might be, or they may be
used as an ingredient or part OF some
prepared dish.
The cheapest of all the pork exports
are the trimmings, and these also go
mainly to tropical countries. The
trimmings ara pieces cut off In trim
ming up hams and shoulders and so
on. the remnants and crumbs from the
packing house tables. Some of these
are used in making sausages and some
are packed and sold as trimmings.
While these. odd things are now
regular articles of sale and shipment,
the packing and export of them has
grown up within the past forty years
| IT, nd nf
modern methods in slaughtering and
packing. In the old times when the
farmer killed his hogs, or when pack
ing was done on more limited scale,
these things, or some of them, might
have gone into the lard kettle, but
they were not sold as they are now.
There were not so many of them, to
begin with, aud they were not as,
sembled in great numbers, as they are
} in these days. With the great growth
of the business with modern methods
/ and the great extension of pork ex
, ports. there came from some OF thu
countries taking these exports de
3 mands for cheaper parts OF the meat
which, from great establishment
. where slaughtering was done on
l great scale, it was now possible tt
supply in quantities. These pur
s chasers took these odd parts of tn
: pig and formed fancy for them, ant
e they buy them now because they lik
9 them.
Lying on South street wharf wait
: ing to be loaded on vessel bound TO
; the West Indies was q lot of handsom
a new oak pork barrels, filled, all
u u them, with nothing but pigs heads
u Ofcourse they buy other pork product
{ in the West Indies. as they do in othe
. tropical countries, but this lot har
pened to be pigs heads. solid. A
old sea captain who was standing o
. the wharf said that he had known
= time, a good many years ago, whe
u some pork had been put up for tn
70 West Indies with every part OF th
, hog in the barrel; hams and shoulder
70 and head and all, the whole pig, an
le his recollections of the pork packe
- in that manner were agreeable; thel
:, - were good things to be found IN sue
- barrel. But there never was muc
:; pork packed in that way, and there
;" none SO packed nowadays when Il
49, tendency is in the other direction, t.
y ward greater refnements of gradll
y and sorting. New York Sun.