Smoker - worth doing a suckling pig?

TB_London · Nov 19, 2023

Planning the Christmas get together, 10 friends, and thinking what food to have.

In previous years have done classic roast beef, slow cooked lamb, Game stew, this year the thinking is more buffet style than sit down meal - mostly as I did a Mexican night and tacos are just the best.

So what to do this year? I did park carnitas and birria for taco night and the pork was the big hit (think people just aren’t used to really good pork)

So my go to is a classic Boston butt, smoked for 8ish hours then wrapped and finished.

Christmas seems like a good time to give a small pig a try, not done before, want to try and if people like pig should be a winner.

But is a small suckling/weaner pig worth it compared to just getting a whole shoulder, 2 Boston butts etc?

Also whilst picking pork off a pig would work for the husbands I’m not so sure sure it will work for the wives….

Any other good ideas for something big that will feed 10 people well ( so c 20lb+)?

More_Gyutos · Nov 19, 2023

Suckling pig, roasted low and slow and served on small slider rolls with a few accompaniments including pickled onion and salsa verde (Italian style) was one of the best things I have ever eaten. I understand some might be squeamish but perhaps you could serve a bit of pulled chicken or pre pulled pork on the side? For the record none of the women I was with were squeamish once they heard the rave reviews on the meat.

WildBoar · Nov 19, 2023

More_Gyutos said:
For the record none of the women I was with were squeamish once they heard the rave reviews on the meat.

Hey -- this is a family-friendly forum!

9mmbhp · Nov 20, 2023

Suckling pig makes a nice porchetta, you can bone it out to be less intimidating or use pork belly.

Heckel7302 · Nov 20, 2023

9mmbhp said:
Suckling pig makes a nice porchetta, you can bone it out to be less intimidating or use pork belly.

Best porchetta I ever had was in Spoleto, Italy from a guy in a food cart. He only did porchetta and it was a whole suckling pig fully deboned. Served on bread with salt, nothing else. Amazing. Probably the view of the Umbrian countryside helped it taste that much better though.