Retired farmer Ed Crosby has several pastimes: puttering around the farm near Larned, playing golf and cooking whole hogs.
Cooking a hog takes more time and less flipping than grilling hamburgers and hotdogs; more time than a game of golf and most farm chores. Nearly 29 hours, he said.
Whole hog roasting is a hobby turned side business. After he watched a friend cook a hog and then tasted the meat, he bought a cooker.
Unlike a barbeque grill, Crosby’s cooker is oval shaped, 8 feet long, 6 feet across, and 4 feet deep. Inside, one rack holds the hogs over a burner in the bottom of the cooker and drip pans under the rack to catch the grease.
Starting out, Crosby cooked a few hogs in a smaller cooker and eventually built his current one to fit two hogs weighing about 200-pounds each.
The hogs normally weigh around 250-270 pounds; a processed carcass weighs about 200 pounds. One 200-pound carcass will serve 150 to 170 people.
To prepare the hog, Crosby stuffs it with dressing he has prepared and sews it back up. He then puts the hog in the cooker to cook at 2750F for 22 to 28 hours or until tender.
Before serving, Crosby places an apple in the hog’s mouth and carrots in its eyes. Servers scrape the meat from and serve it with the dressing.
Crosby’s sons, Lance and Jason, along with other family members assist when he caters events. Crosby’s sons operate the family farm and cattle business. They roast the hogs if Dad has other obligations.
Throughout his 20 years of cooking hogs, Crosby has catered weddings, graduations, agricultural sprayer schools, meetings and family reunions.
One year he and his neighbors celebrated the end of wheat harvest with a hog feed in Crosby’s backyard. “Everyone was relieved to be done with harvest so it was a very relaxed and excited atmosphere,” he recalled.
The hog is an attention getter, he said. “It’s fun to watch the kids’ faces when they come through the line.”
Cost and Contact:
A hot feed costs about $6 a plate. This price varies depending on the cost of supplies. Meat is served with coleslaw; a choice of baked beans, green beans or corn; KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce; bread and butter; ice tea and water. Cosby provides servers, plates and eating utensils.
Contact Crosby at (620) 285-2365.
