# "Strong" smelling pork.



## stef (Sep 14, 2002)

Our grocers have really been selling pork for cheap recently. Must be to offset the high price of beef.

So...I bought a nice package of ribs. They smelled fine when I cut them apart and froze them. However, I cooked a portion the other day and the aroma was very, very strong. 'Gamy' almost. It was not spoiled, and it tasted fine, but the odor was really something.

I plan on pre-cooking the rest in salted water before I prepare it for whatever recipe and I think that will get rid of some of the unpleasant odor.

Any thoughts on why it might have had that strong smell?

Again...it was totally fresh and I ate it with no ill effects. 

??

stef


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## Goldie (Feb 18, 2009)

Sounds like it could have been a boar. That meat is sometimes rank.


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## stef (Sep 14, 2002)

Do you mean a male pig?


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## nappy (Aug 17, 2003)

Had that happen to me once. I bought a pork roast and cut it in half freezing part of it for later. When I cooked the first piece, it tasted rank...so tossed that and the frozen piece. I know it was wasteful but I'd been reading of the "awful stuff" that had been fed to pigs around that time so didn't want to take a chance. :hrm:


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

A boar is an intact male pig.


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## stef (Sep 14, 2002)

As I said earlier, it did _not_ taste bad. It smelled very strong when it was cooking.

It did not smell bad when I was cutting it into portions. If it had, for sure I would have pitched it.


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## unregistered65598 (Oct 4, 2010)

First may I say that being a butcher, please don't just toss it. It it smells off and you don't like it, please take it back if you can for a refund or exchange. It is god awfully embarrassing when people bring things back, but I would want the chance if given to correct it. As for the off smell while cooking, but not before I am not sure about. Did you thaw it correctly? Thats the only reason I can think of for it not smelling right.


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## hotzcatz (Oct 16, 2007)

Meat can taste different depending on the animals age, gender and diet. Then you get into how it was slaughtered and how the meat was handled afterwards. THEN, you get into recipes, marinades and everything else done to it in the cooking process. It is rather amazing how consistent the flavors of the commercial meats are when you consider how many variables there are out there.

The local consensus around here is if it's an older boar, it's dog food. But that's also because more than likely the other pig they caught was a young tender sow, so I don't know how far we should trust that advice.


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## oregon woodsmok (Dec 19, 2010)

Boar meat. It smells bad when cooking, but tastes fine and won't hurt you.


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## Old John (May 27, 2004)

oregon woodsmok said:


> Boar meat. It smells bad when cooking, but tastes fine and won't hurt you.


Umm-hunnh..........That's why you have garlic, curry powder, Cajun seasoning, and other fragrant herbs & spices in your larder. It improves the smell & taste of a rank, old Boar. And, you don't have to waste the meat.


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## stef (Sep 14, 2002)

Thanks, everyone. I think I will just pre-boil it in some salted water first and then cook it as ususal. 

The strong odor kind of threw me, but it tasted okay, and I know it isn't spoiled.

Just wondered if anyone else had ever encountered this.


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## poorboy (Apr 15, 2006)

Maybe you are preggy!:hysterical:


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

Some folks think boar hog meat don't stink...

All I can say is some folks sniffers aren't hardwired properly.

I 'can' turn my nose off, when necessary, but prefer not to do that when its something I'm eating. I've slaughtered a few boars, everything from shoats on up, and all of them to a T, stank like boiling urine. Yummm.... boiled urine... Might expect that smell if I were cooking kidneys, but not a whole hog and every part on it.

Selling an old or not needed boar hog used to not be worth hauling to the sale barn... after hauling, auction fees, and other 'bills', the hog might bring a couple of bucks. My uncle stopped carrying... a 400lb boar would bring him 5 to 10 bucks, take home money. Of course, once the nasty beast meat makes it to market, it's priced like good pork.


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## lemonthyme7 (Jul 8, 2010)

I agree with the smell of boar meat. We had one that had got crippled in its back legs and my parents butchered it. While there was nothing wrong with the meat I had a hard time eating it because of the smell when it was cooking. My SIL who was pregnant at the time couldn't even come in the house if mom was cooking it because the smell made her so sick!


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

Boar taint is a bit more complicated than that. About 25% of people can't smell it BUT the vast majority of boar pigs don't have taint AND taint is caused by many factors including genetics, feed, management and exposure. Not only that but bad killing, poor bleed out, improper storage, etc can all cause spoilage that gets blamed on boar taint.

Maybe it is boar taint. Maybe it is spoilage. Maybe it is stress hormones from a bad kill. Hard to tell across the net without smelling it.


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## oregon woodsmok (Dec 19, 2010)

The old boars who went to market used to end up at the sausage factory. Now, with pork so high at the market, maybe a few processors are seeing a lot of $ in a hog that they paid 5 cents a pound for and can sell for $2.45 a pound. 

After all, there is no way for the consumer to trace the meat back to them. As the decades go by, there is less honor and more sense of being clever when getting away with cheating the system.


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## Use Less (Nov 8, 2007)

What they already said, plus ,maybe old enough that the fat had gone rancid?


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## wogglebug (May 22, 2004)

I'm sure it was boar taint. 
I'm sure it would be possible for people to pass on the occasional boar to be sold as good pork, particularly if they were selling to a mass-market outlet where the bad consumer reaction wouldn't find its way back to the supplier.
However, maybe (giving the benefit of the doubt) it wasn't from an obvious boar. Some males can have undescended testicles. There's nothing there to be got with castration, and the animal is useless for breeding, but the glands are still pumping out the hormones that make a male, and that would include boar taint. Wouldn't speak well of the meat inspection at that killing plant, since it should be obvious, but it would be possible.


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

highlands said:


> Hard to tell across the net without smelling it.


There's a project for a budding entrepreneur... have a usb powered smell generator... I could see it working great, till some juvenile hacker learned how to use it for juvenile purposes... imagine getting an email that says "pull my finger"...:yuck:


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## stef (Sep 14, 2002)

I did a little research and it appears that, although males are the primary 'culprits' of boar taint, female hormones can also occasionally inject a strong odor to pork meat.

That being said, I reiterate, the meat was _not_ spoiled. 

Today I did what I said I'd do: pre-cooked it in a little salt water; took the meat off the bones and made 8 pints of soup in the pressure canner. It came out fine. 

There was some extra I cooked up right away and the flavor was good and clean. 


So...that's my experience.*  *


p.s. after thawing, the meat also had less odor this time around...I'm thinking freezing it somehow worked to neutralize the odor


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## Ed Norman (Jun 8, 2002)

I think it was because you bought ribs. I always pick up a slightly different smell from ribs, boar or gilt or barrow or sow. I always thought it had to do with being so close to the innards and having a different kind of fat and tissue associated with it. And some ribs smell stronger than others to me, but they all have a different smell from other cuts. 

It's kinda like pronghorn meat. I love the steaks and other cuts, but hate the ribs. I think ribs are built different.


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## Fae (Mar 9, 2005)

I bought some bacon a few weeks ago that smells strong when cooking. My Granddaddy would always say we were cooking old boar hog if he came in while we were cooking bacon and it smelled strong. I don't like the smell of it but hate to throw away the bacon.


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## Son_of_Oregon (Jun 11, 2018)

Definitely boar taint. We just slaughtered two boars that we thought had been castrated. Both were quick clean kills and were bled correctly. When gutting them we discovered that both had undescended testicles. We decided to go ahead and butcher up the meat anyway. Tonight I was making some ground sausage from the trimmings. At no point while I was putting the meat through the grinder did I smell anything weird. However, when I was cleaning my grinder with hot water, I noticed a pungent aroma coming from the sink. At this point I began to worry. After mixing in my spices and packaging the sausage, I threw a small patty in a frying pan and cooked
it up. Well, needless to say, my house now wreaks of boar piss. My wife is super sensitive to gamy smells ever since being pregnant and giving birth to our son. So when she wakes up she’ll probably give me a tongue lashing. But the good news is that the sausage tasted great. Despite the bad smell during cooking, the meat had no gamy taste whatsoever. In the future I will just cook the meat on the BBQ or run an extension cord outside so it doesn’t smell up the house when cooking in the crock pot. Definitely still good meat and worth keeping.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Son_of_Oregon said:


> Well, needless to say, my house now wreaks of boar piss.


Yet people will claim boar taint is uncommon. In addition to the stink, boars have plates, thickening on the shoulders.
Every meat buyer knows this. That is why good butcher hogs are 50 cents a pound, old sows are 35 cents a pound and boars are 7 cents a pound.
At some point, someone knew those two pigs were male and didn't remove the nuts. Bad deal for you.


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## Son_of_Oregon (Jun 11, 2018)

haypoint said:


> At some point, someone knew those two pigs were male and didn't remove the nuts. Bad deal for you.


Well, like I said, they were undescended so I’m not sure how they could have been castrated. Luckily, the two males were free as well as a female. The meat tastes fine. It will just need to be cooked outside. I did not notice any difference in flavor.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Son_of_Oregon said:


> Well, like I said, they were undescended so I’m not sure how they could have been castrated. Luckily, the two males were free as well as a female. The meat tastes fine. It will just need to be cooked outside. I did not notice any difference in flavor.


Yes, that is an option. The owner obviously knew they would require more of a medical procedure to get those nuts out and he apparently chose the most economically reasonable option, foist them off on someone elese, even if you have to give them away. Seems like a cheap shot if he didn't tell you when you got them. But I don't know the details.
People look at food differently. A few years ago a million pounds of hamburger was recalled and destroyed due to a threat of e coli. From a practical sense, they could have just put a sticker, " cook well". Most people just do not want to eat meat that might have e coli, so it was destroyed. With that in mind, I think that pork that tastes just fine, but stinks like fried urine while being cooked would be distasteful to most. Bon apatite.


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## blanket (May 28, 2013)

you got what you paid for


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## montysky (Aug 21, 2006)

We will process a culled sows but it is not worth it to us to process a old boar. if someone wants it for meat I will just give them the boar for free. Yes it will make a fine sausage pig but We just cant stand the smell and DW would not stand to have that in the house.


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## montysky (Aug 21, 2006)

Son_of_Oregon said:


> Well, like I said, they were undescended so I’m not sure how they could have been castrated. Luckily, the two males were free as well as a female. The meat tastes fine. It will just need to be cooked outside. I did not notice any difference in flavor.


What was the ages for the Boars? and also welcome to the group


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

montysky said:


> We will process a culled sows but it is not worth it to us to process a old boar.


The livestock market/auction agrees with you. Old sows go for 30 cents a pound while boars bring 7 cents a pound.


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