GOING WHOLE HOG.

Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

When Jeremy Shank decided to throw a 30th birthday party for his wife, Nicole, earlier this year, he knew there had to be some sort of grand food offering for his guests.

"I wanted to have a big slab of meat on the table and a pig seemed like the best way to do it," said Shank, who purchased a whole pig and pit roasted it in his backyard.

"People were blown away. A lot of them had never eaten pig right off the hog ... It was perfect."

Shank was so pleased with the way his party turned out, he decided to host an encore pig roast on the Fourth of July, which appeared to be every bit as well-received.

"Spectacular," raved Chris Wylie, a guest at the party. "All I'm thinking about is when I'm going to do it myself."

Whole pig roasts aren't just for Hawaiian luaus anymore. From casual backyard partiers to serious barbecue aficionados to golfers at the Eugene Country Club, lots of carnivores are jumping on the whole animal roast bandwagon, which the Wall Street Journal called "this year's summer backyard curiosity."

"For one, I think people like to see the whole animal," says Allan Peterson, sous chef at the Eugene Country Club. "It's a cool thing and not everybody does it."

At least not yet. Peterson says he's cooked four whole pigs this summer, compared to only one last year. He recently roasted a 135-pound pig for a luau being hosted by the club.

His advice to neophytes: "Just give yourself plenty of time."

Peterson used a propane roaster and a secret rub, and cooked his hog for 11 hours until the internal temperature reached 155 degrees. Shank followed a more primitive method. He dug a hole in his backyard and followed the advice of a Samoan friend.

Shank used hot coals and rocks, and wrapped his 72-pound, veggie-filled pig in chicken wire for easy handling. After placing the pig on the rocks, he covered it with more hot rocks, topped it with banana leaves and aluminum foil and smothered it with wet newspaper until he couldn't see any smoke escaping. Three hours later, he pulled the pig out of the ground.

"It's really good, he's got everything right," said Suli Paulo, Shank's Samoan friend. "With Samoan people, this pig would be (gone) in like 30 minutes."

Other popular methods for roasting pigs include using portable ovens and wooden boxes known as "caja chinas." Spit roasting is another technique, but many experts recommend against it. Mike Wooley, owner of Long's Meat Market, recalls reading a newspaper story about one spit roaster who started a grease fire that burned down his neighbor's fence.

Wooley, too, has seen an increase in pig roasting. He sells 25 to 30 hogs a year compared to about one or two several years ago. Long's requires a week to fill orders and, for a premium, can supply 100 percent natural Oregon pigs from Carlton Farms. Conventional whole pigs start at $130 for 40- to 50-pound animals and the price per pound goes down as the weight increases.

"I probably get more calls on the barbecue pig than I do on somebody wanting a pig for their freezer, which is interesting," Wooley says. "It wasn't too long ago that not too many people were going to do that kind of extravagant party."

Industry insiders say the rise of whole animal roasts may be due to a number of factors, including the growing number of barbecue programs on cable TV and the explosion of low-carb diets, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Also, as consumers have become more concerned about meatpacking and food preparation, the idea of seeing a whole animal cooked right in front of you can be appealing.

"It seems safer to me," Shank says. "This is how people cooked meat before there was mad cow disease."

Although pigs are by far the most common whole animal order among barbecuers at Long's, Wooley also fills requests for whole beef, whole lambs and whole goats, and can even deliver alligators, rattlesnakes and wild boars.

Jack Edmonds of Fall Creek didn't feel the need to go whole hog with his pit barbecue, which he hosted earlier this month. He dug a 4-foot-deep hole in the ground and roasted a 20-pound turkey and a quarter of a pig for 12 hours.

Edmonds covered a bed of hardwood coals and lava rocks with dirt and wet burlap. Then, he placed his meat - which had been injected with marinade and wrapped in cheesecloth, wet burlap and chicken wire - on top and covered it with more layers of wet burlap. He built a shelf, installed a plywood roof 18 inches above the smoldering mass and sealed the underground oven with plastic and dirt.

"I'd appreciate a guy that stayed up all night and put the effort into cooking for me a lot more than I would some guy that ordered (food) from some caterer," Edmonds says. "I believe (the guests) felt that way too ... A good time was had by all."

Edmonds may have missed out on some of the wow factor that's created when an entire 70-pound animal is laid out on a banquet table. At Shank's party, guests surrounded the bronzed pig, almost as soon as it was placed on a 4-foot-long maple carving board, which Shank had created for the occasion.

Of course, not everyone can stomach the sight of a roasted animal with the head still on and some of the vegetarian guests at Shank's party kept their distance from the carcass. Because the party was advertised as an Independence Day Hog Roast, people knew what they were in for.

The appeal of whole animal roasts isn't just in the presentation. When roasted, a whole pig yields meat so tender it doesn't need to be sliced. Petersen, the Eugene Country Club chef, pulled the meat right off the bone with a fork when serving his guests. He says the tenderloin, located deep within the cavity along the spine, offers the best meat.

Whaanga Kewene, a New Zealand native who has pit roasted several whole pigs, says roasting large cuts of meat maximizes the flavor of the food. He uses an elaborate Maori pit roasting method passed down from his father. For convenience sake, he prefers to cook 20- to 30-pound restaurant cuts of meat, along with potatoes and corn.

"What makes (the meat) different is you're really preserving the flavor of the food," Kewene says. "Part of the actual flavor, believe it or not, comes from the soil. I've done probably 60 of them (pit roasts) and I've never had a problem."

The only problem at Shank's Fourth of July pig roast seemed to be keeping the guests in line as they came back for seconds, thirds and fourths. At the urging of Paulo, some of the guests even ate the brain, which is considered a delicacy in Samoa and tastes a bit like pate. Samoans also eat pig tongue, which is rumored to provide the gift of gab.

For Shank, the best part of the experience was seeing the expression on his guests' faces as he served up heaping platefuls of food.

"Something like this is a huge effort, but to eat something you've been toiling on all day and to have it taste so good is one of the best feelings," Shank said. "And to have everyone there be so impressed only adds to the feeling."

CAPTION(S):

Tender pork might be served with other roasted dishes such as potatoes, chicken and corn. Allan Peterson, sous chef for the Eugene Country Club, checks on a 135-pound whole pig he's roasting for a poolside dinner at the club. Jeremy Shank prepares a roasting pit in his backyard.