Bob Combs' R.C. Farms

Ham is among the few foods that are eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner, or between two slices of bread any time of day. Just about every country in the world produces ham and none classify this meat as pig’s leg, though that is precisely what it is, the lean hind leg of the hog.

Ham connoisseurs have their favorites. Mine are Serrano and  Iberian, though I also love: Bayonne ham from the Pyrenees region of France; Black Forest ham; a heavily-smoked ham from Germany smoked over pine wood; Westphalian ham; a cured ham also from German; Parma ham; a dry-cured ham; Prosciutto ham; another dry-cured but not smoked Italian ham; Smithfield ham, one the best known U.S. country hams.

But Good Heavens! When I asked about unusual, odd — I really mean, weird –FOOD JOBS,

Las Vegas Strip

Jennifer Graue (JenInOz) replied on Twitter about  71 year-old Bob Combs the pig farmer. He lives on the outskirts of Las Vegas and mines the thoughtlessly thrown out leftover food scraps from many of the city’s upscale restaurants and casinos like a golden slot machine.

As a result, these leftovers don’t go to the landfill, instead they are recycled into feed for Bob’s 3,500 pigs. Such scraps are actually chock-full of nutrients, which is why Bob has really healthy pigs that grow at twice the normal rate. His pigs calls it food, he calls it conservation through swine. And he is laughing all the way to the bank.

His farm, R.C. Farms, lies 13 miles north of the Las Vegas strip. In the past, he’s been offered as much as $70 million dollars for his place by developers. He calls them “tire kickers” and isn’t interested in selling.

Instead, in addition to food scraps, Bob also recycles old milk and ice cream that don’t sell at the store when both go past their expiration dates. Bob says that both are only slightly old but still sweet. One small fact: Ice cream can ferment. Bob reveals that one time 150 of his hogs got drunk from some fermented ice cream as they were ready to be loaded up for slaughter. It was a bit of a challenge, Bob admits, to get these 250 pound hogs back onto the truck. Imagine: hungover and hung out to dry.

Just about everyone is happy with this conservation effort, that is, except Bob’s neighbors. The pigs eat the leftover food scraps, gain weight, and then are processed for human consumption.

If you do not believe me, you can see it here as Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs speaks to Bob Combs. (NB: Mr. Combs’ slightly slurred speech is due to a past car accident.)

I was wondering, in this age of specialization, do you think it possible that we will soon be able to buy Bellagio ham or Mandalay Bay ham or Mirage resort ham?

Matters of Fact:

• The pig is a symbol of good luck and prosperity.
• The expression, “eating high on the hog” comes from the way meat was once portioned in the British army. The tender cuts “high on the hog” were saved for the officers.

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Calling somebody a swine is even worse than calling him a pig. A swine is a disgusting, contemptible person. A pig isn’t a nice person either, unless her name is Miss Piggy. And, if she is one of three dear little piggies that give us bacon for breakfast, a ham sandwich for lunch and a nice pork chop for dinner.

Right now, right this very minute we should stop describing the fast-moving current flu, the terrible swine flu. As far as we can tell, though the original sin may be laid at the trotter of a pig that was a long time ago. The current H1N1 virus that is concerning us now is a mutant strain far removed from the original organism.

The trouble is that once a name sticks, it results in all sorts of misunderstandings. Already countries around the world are refusing to import pork products from the United States and Canada. I’m not minimizing the risk. Far from it. The 1918-1919 flu epidemic killed more people than World War I. We know 36,000 people die every year from complications from influenza.  Another 11,000 patients die from respiratory tract infections.

I’m suggesting that it is inflammatory, and in fact, incorrect to use the word ‘swine’ to describe influenza.

Mad cows got a bum rap too. The chance of contracting mad cow disease is one in 10 billion.  This doesn’t mean the risk is zero, but it is perilously close. We are more like to be sickened by our grandmother’s potato salad which has been left out in the hot sun than to be bopped on the head by a crazed drug dealer. Do you know how many bathers are eaten by sharks every year?  Sometimes four, worldwide. The risk of being struck by lightening is 30 times greater than landing up in the jaws of shark. Killer bees are way scarier than bumble bees: 14,408 people are murdered in the U.S. every year. There are 43,000 car accidents every year. And, 26,000 injuries result from squirrels and deer when drivers swerve to avoid hitting them. We live in perilous times.

There are 700,000 physicians in the U.S. Accidental deaths caused by doctors every year is 120,000. Accidental deaths per doctor is 0.171 according the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. So, think about this: the number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80 million. The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .OOOO188. Therefore doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners. We dwell in confusion.

Big Macs and Whoppers are dangerous to our long-term health. Eat only a steady diet of carrots, and the whites of your eyes will turn yellow and your skin orange.

We could prevent many hundreds of incidents of food poisoning if we simply irradiated our ground beef. The word ‘irradiation’ is the hang-up here. If we called it ‘cosmic processing,’ we would be likely to embrace the process and be safer.

We once dreaded ‘pasteurization’. We were told not to walk past the microwave or our hair will fall out and would become impotent (two of the most dreaded afflictions that can befall man). We’ve been told not to lie in the sun, not to use cell phones or we’ll get brain tumors. We are told not to drink coffee. It’s O.K. to drink red wine…and exercise. Here’s another misunderstanding. Some folks think this means a regime in which you jog from bar to bar.

So there are real risks and imagined risks, and risks that stem from misunderstandings and misnomers.  I’m just suggesting we should worry about the current flu, but let’s call a rose a rose and influenza, influenza.

Leave the petits cochons out of it.

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