Javelina Turned into a Year's Worth of Meals

The holidays have taken on a new meaning for me dating and now married into a large hunting family (blood relatives and friends).

What better time to get everyone back together to process meat than during the holidays when everyone is in town and looking to lay low anyway?

We hunt together every January for javelina in the desert of Arizona and most everyone is successful every year and we end up with enough meat that processing days are long and multiple. This year there was roughly 95 lbs of Javelina waiting to be made into sausage. Add some pork shoulder and bacon, and processing is an event.

But, this also allows us to be creative. We will come away with breakfast sausage, chorizo, and several flavors of snack sticks along with summer sausage.

Day 1. Since we de-bone and wash then freeze all the meat in camp, we just have to let the javelina thaw. Everyone gathers around the butcher block island in the kitchen with a beverage of choice, a cutting board and a sharp knife. Don’t stop until everything is in 1-2 inch cubed chunks.

Day 2. This day is usually the holiday, either Thanksgiving or Christmas or if it isn’t a holiday, Saturday. Regardless, we always eat too much.
We have plenty of coolers so we use them to let the meat rest in their respective seasonings for 1-2 days. Mixing on occasion when we think about it or someone wants to get their hands dirty. The dogs generally give the crack between the lid and container a lick on the way by hoping we left a remnant for them.

Day 3. Get out the grinder, sausage stuffer, hog rings and leftovers. After enough years doing this, everyone kind of has their task. My husband generally grinds all the meat and hands it off to someone making sausage or just running it through the grinder and into breakfast sausage bags in one and a half pound increments.

If we are making snack sticks or summer sausage, the smoker is rollin outside and the sausage goes right on. It is another all day affair and sometimes takes two days of smoking depending on how much we process.

While it seems like a lot of work, it is a lot of fun when our family and friends are all there participating from start to finish. We remember stories from that year’s hunt, or hunts past and laugh at all the silly things that happened in camp. And then we all go home with treats that feed us throughout the year and at the next hunt camp. It is something that I look forward to every year.

Written By ReelCamo Girl ProStaff Jessica Manuell

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