Written by: Roscoe |  Print this post and share it with your buddies!

NO BUTTS ABOUT IT
Why do they call it a pork butt when it’s really a shoulder? The answer: we don’t really care. We just want it to taste good, no matter what anyone calls it. There’s hardly anything better than a barbequed pulled pork sandwich. Done right, it’s one of the tastiest things on the planet.

WHO INVENTED IT?
Hard to say. You can probably get any barbecue aficionado to claim that their particular region did it first and makes it best. But think about it: there were pig farms all over the world for as long as anyone has cared to keep track of such things (get an old Farmer’s Almanac, it’ll mention somewhere that the best time to feed the pigs is in the morning). You think they only cooked the ribs? You think bacon was all anyone ever wanted from the pig? Well, maybe. At least in the beginning. But the Cookin’ With Roscoe research staff did some research (duh?), and they came up with a very little known tidbit of information:

PULLED PORK HAPPENED BY ACCIDENT
This was long before Oscar Meyer, or anyone else, had ever sliced up a side of bacon and sold it to the public. Oh, they were selling bacon, but in slabs. And they were smoking ribs, to be sure, because cave men cooked in their caves. Where do you think all that smoke went? It filled the cave and stayed there, since it was pretty tough to carve out holes for ventilation. This situation was bad for the cave men, and some of them even suffered from smoke inhalation, though this was long before anyone ever heard of second hand smoke. But it was great for the meat they had piled on the rocks around them. It probably didn’t take long for the cave man to realize what a treasure he had (cave men weren’t as dumb as people think). And here’s where pulled pork comes in: since utensils were kind of scarce at that particular time in history, all they could do was pull their food apart with their hands, maybe slice it up if their knife was sharp that day. So the first instance of pulled pork was just an everyday occurrence for the cave man. He had his pig parts smoking away on the rocks in his cave, and one day he was in the mood for some shoulder, so he reached up, yanked it down to throw it on the fire pit, but saw that it was already cooked, so he started pulling it apart. It was only later that people started to put sauce on it, and we all know how sandwiches began (see BURGERS, this website). But as you can now see and (arguably) admit, the cave man probably pulled the first pork. Butt?.

YOU DON’T EVEN NEED A SMOKER
Purists will tell you otherwise (article coming soon from the Pitmaster), but Roscoe has made some pretty darned good pulled pork right in his oven at home (we don’t call this site Cookin’ With Roscoe for nothin’).

ANYONE CAN DO IT
Go to your butcher or market and get a pork shoulder, or pork butt, a 6 to 10 pounder. This is a big piece of meat, so cut it in four sections. You might need a cleaver to get through the bone.

INFUSE IT WITH GARLIC
Separate a head of garlic, peel the cloves, and stick each clove into a slit in the pork – stick a steak knife into the pork, give it a couple turns, and pull it out, then stick in the garlic (about four per piece). The garlic will practically melt into the pork while it’s cooking.

THE RUB
All important. The idea is to get as much flavor into this pork as possible. You can use whatever you like. Roscoe recommends a mixture of equal parts Montreal steak seasoning, smoked garlic, smoked paprika, chili powder. Rub it all over the pork pieces, including the fat.

THE MARINADE
Put each (rubbed) chunk of pork in a gallon size plastic bag. Pour in olive oil, Worcestershire, hot sauce, red wine vinegar, any chili sauce you like, and soy or sesame sauce. Seal up the bags and put ‘em in the fridge for as long as you can (at least a few hours).

COOK IT ALL NIGHT
Before you go to bed, pre-heat your oven to 220. Put each chunk of pork butt onto a grate in a roasting pan, fat side up. Pour the remaining marinade over the pork; let it seep down into the pan. Pour a bottle of good beer (is there a bad beer?) into the pan, and put the whole thing into the oven. Close the door and walk away. Go to bed. In twelve hours your pork butt is done. You don’t even have to check it with a thermometer. Take it out; let it rest a while, though you might not have the will power.

PULL IT APART
Unlike our cave man ancestors, we have plenty of utensils. You’ll probably be able to get the fat off the top in one piece, then get a couple of big forks, and start pulling the pork. It should fall apart, so this activity won’t really threaten anyone with a heart condition. You’ll be tempted to pop some of the pork into your mouth. Go ahead. This is when it’s best. There are few taste experiences better than this.

SAUCE
Your favorite BBQ sauce will do here, or you can make your own. A mustard sauce works particularly well on pulled pork, so if you want, just slam a couple spoonfuls of your favorite mustard right into your favorite BBQ sauce, and you’ll have a new taste treat.

TO BUN, OR NOT TO BUN
Get a good soft bun, fill it with the pork, slather on the sauce, and be sure you’ve got a lot of napkins. You’ll need ‘em. Or, if you’re feeling a civilized, eat the pork with a fork off a plate with some slaw and sweet potato fries. No sense going to church this week, you’re already in heaven.

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-Roscoe