At the market the other day to buy a slab of belly-pork, I noticed a number of the Vietnamese butchers had signs specifying the ‘femaleness’ of the meat.
What’s the difference?
Because of testosterone, the flesh of intact male animals is tougher than that of females. Usually, those males not needed for breeding stock are either castrated to keep their meat tender (as with beef cattle) or killed outright (as with chickens). I’m not sure what they do with pigs.
Can you say, “roast suckling pig?”
Turkeys and chickens are also sold by gender. A hen turkey is usually more moist and flavorful than a tom. Ever hear of a capon chicken? That’s a young rooster who’s been taken out of circulation early in the game.
A capon is a male chicken that has been castrated. We don’t usually sell many capons anymore except in specialties markets because current meat breeds tend to reach market weight before sexual maturity. If you a chicken is a capon is is usually because its been taken out of circulation LATER in the game then most of your fryers.
Just for note they keep the males of meat strain chickens, its the males from egg strains that are not grown out. With pigs it’s general practice to castrate the males that are to be processed.
Meat from male pigs supposedly retains a “pissy” odour and/or flavour.
Mr. S was recently telling some guests about his family’s experience with attempting to raise pigs one year. Apparently his dad never got around to getting them castrated, so they never gained any weight. Mr. S referred to them as “racing hogs.” Lean and mean instead of fat and lazy.
So pork livestock is different than beef livestock? The way I understood it, beef you buy in the store comes from steers (castrated males). So I always figured pork comes from castrated male pigs.
pork usually comes from castrated male pigs or unaltered females. Same with beef.
IIRC for turkeys weight is the ONLY factor as to if they get the tom or hen label where something like 15 lbs is the break point (under 15 = hen, 15 and up = tom).
Before all of you start trying to jump on this one saying but thats wrong a tom is a male and a hen is a female yada yada. (don’t deny it I know atleast one of you was thinking this) I will provide some insight as to why this would be a chosen labeling system. Traditionally Toms are grown out longer than the hens because they remain efficient in weight gain longer. In a processing plant it would be easier to take weight measurements than to do a sex check on every bird coming in the door. In the majority of cases the bird would still be labeled correctly anyway.
msrexrabbit, you have a good point. Even qualified veterinarians have a difficult time sexing birds without using surgical methods. As with nearly all of the animal world, gender specific physiological proportions serve as a good guidline. Thank you for your informative post.