“I want a snack.”

“Let’s make lunch.”

Why not both? Given a busy day on the farm, two things go hand in hand: slow-cooking meals that you can set and forget, and tasty ones that can be as full as a sit-down meal or simply a pick-as-you-go. 

When my wife harvested a boar earlier this year, I had saved the pork bellies whole for her to make something inevitably delicious. 

It was on one sunny day between rains that she brought out the big guns. I was thinking she might make another pork roll of sorts or fry up some strips to use as a topping with a salad. Instead, she made nuggets of pure tastiness. Pork burnt ends.

What are they, you ask? Put simply, they are large cubes of pork meat with an equal balance of fat and meat, covered in a dry rub, grilled and coated in a sticky-sweet BBQ sauce. The end result: crunchy, tender bites of pork with sweet and smoky char melting in your mouth like the perfect carnivore candy that they are. 

For any vegetarians reading this week—sorry, but this one isn’t for you. But don’t worry, I’m thinking swiss chard for next month.

If you have a smoker, you can use that; if all you have is a grill, then you can do that too. If nothing else, this recipe can still be accomplished using a conventional oven, so no matter your situation, you should be able to partake in these terrific treats. I’ve half a mind to prep some in tin foil and take them camping sometime. 

The exact process is very flexible, as long as you manage your heat and add the right sweet. The only drawback to preparing these is that they take so long and that you have to babysit them in the latter hours as you apply the BBQ sauce mixture. 

We made ours in a couple of small tin trays on the grill. After setting them, we returned to the yardwork we were otherwise occupied with and checked on them every so often for the next few hours in between tasks.

After fully cooking, they made for great pickings as we continued to run errands around the farm and were easy enough to dole out a few bites at a time to the tiny farmers who let us know how hungry they were.

If you aren’t much of a fan of bacon, I would definitely try doing this with the belly from your next pig. If you do like bacon the way we do, then unfortunately your annual pig expenses just went up, because nothing works quite so well as pork belly, and a pig only has two. 

The way out here we love our bacon, but we love all the other fun things you can make too, regardless of the cook and prep time. Everything takes time; why not spend it building a meal so scrumptious you can’t spend your days waiting till you can do it again?