St. Mary's Pork and Corn Roast

St. Mary's Pork and Corn Roast - 2004

Sunday is the annual St. Mary's Pork and Corn Roast. Many of the pigs came from the very lively auction at the Lake County Fair last weekend. The prize pig went for $41.25 per pound for a 268 pound pig; these are rarified pigs.

I will be there with my family to eat around 2 PM. Though you are just west of Libertyville, you will feel like you're in a very rural event. They have lots of homemade inexpensive games and rides for kids. One ride is old oil barrels cut out and painted to look like pigs on wheels being led by a tractor.

A few secrets we have learned over the years: if you want the crisp skin of the pig, it is not at the serving table. Walk over the screened-in kitchen behind the serving line. Ask the crew who are carving up the pigs - and there are a lot of pigs - for the skin. They really treat the best part like it is less than desireable, well, some of us know better! BBQ sauce is not the greatest, it is probably best you bring it from home.

A full serving is roasted pig, sauerkraut with ham bits, beans, cole slaw, corn off the cob with butter dipping containers plus bread. Drinks are seperate and beer is available. There are picnic tables as well as a tent to eat within. So there is no reason not to come due to weather. Cost is $10 per adult, $4 for kids 4-12 and any smaller are free.

Anyway, I will be there and anyone is welcome to join us. Give me a heads up or just show up as some did to the Lake County Fair!

St. Mary's Pig and Corn Roast - Mundelein - 2005

This is one of the highlights of my summer. Almost all the pigs are from last week's Lake County Fair. These are my tips from last year.

Please find information here

Sunday Menu

In the spirit of community, St Mary’s Pork & Corn Roast features the best locally raised and locally cooked Pork in the entire world. If we may be so bold, it’s second to Nun (just a little Catholic joke).

Pork & Corn Dinner: $10 Adult, $4 Kids 4~12, Kids under 4 eat free

Pork, Pork, and More Pork: Slow roasted over a charcoal fire for 12 hours!

Fresh Sweet Corn: Picked at 5am, Shucked at 9am, Cooked and Served at 1pm. Talk about fresh!

Freshly Sliced Tomatoes: No old rotten tomatoes. Just the freshest we can find.

Sour Kraut: Special St Mary’s blend! If we told you the recipe, you know what we’d have to do.

Baked Beans: Fabulous! Ditto on the bean recipe.

Apple Sauce: yummy!

Bread: white, wheat or rye

BBQ Sauce from Brother’s Ribs if you please! Delicious!

Other Food Items Available

Culvers Frozen Custard

Wisconsin Brats

Pure Beef Hot Dogs

Corn by the Ear

Pop Corn

Snow Cones

Adult Beverages*

Budweiser Products: Bud, Bud Light, Michelob

Wine: White, Red

Margaritas: Mr. Hansen’s World Famous Blend

* Must show a valid ID and wear a wristband to be served

Beverages

Pepsi Products: Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Slice, Diet Slice, Gator Aid

Bottled Water

Kids Games/Activities

The Pork and Corn Roast is more than just a great meal. Its loads of fun for the whole family. The kids will have stuff to do all afternoon. Moms, Dads, and kids will not go home disappointed.

Classic Farm Tractors:

The Lake County Farm Heritage Society will have a variety of vintage farm implements on display and be on hand to answer questions. Great for kids of all ages to learn about our agricultural roots.

Pony Rides

Let the little ones get on a Pony and ride around in a circle. Yee Haaa! I know it sounds funny, but the kids love it.

Petting Zoo

Safe for the kids. Let em get right in the pen and pet a pig, goat or lamb. Fun fun fun!

Clowns

The balloon clown that makes those crazy animals is always a hit. Not to mention the bumblebee, although my little guy ran for the hills at first sight of the buzzing menace. Kids go crazy over this stuff.

Classic Kids Carnival Games

Toss a football through a hole

Make a few baskets at our b-ball net

Bounce a stuffed pig into a rotating pot (no kidding)

Race some horses (mini plastic ones)

Pull a duck out a of pool (the 2 year olds will do this all day)

Bozo Buckets (say no more)

Lollipop Tree (the fun just never stops)

Classic Dunk Tank (Featuring newly ordained Fr. Robert all day long! …well maybe)

Thanks Cathy for the info! Is the $10 all you can eat??

Is the $10 all you can eat??

In the past you could get back in line, last year it was all you could get in one pass --- but it was a lot.

I also go for the 'garbage' and get the crispy skin. I'll post pictures from last year later this evening.

On Cathy's suggestion I made the trek up to Mundelein, and it was a drive well spent (I later went to the Lake County folk festival in Lake Zurich and one of the local parks in Waucounda, so it was a Lake County day).

The day was the kind of Midwestern summer day where the lassitude of the heat made everything seem just a little sweeter - including the people (including me). The corn was particularly sweet and fresh. I had been eating fresh Georgia corn all summer, but this summer, given the rain, it was less sweet than usual. But this Lake County corn was wonderful.

The servers also kindly gave me the crispy pork ends. While the BBQ sauce was nothing special, the pork was delightful as was the sauerkraut and beans.

A splendid summer afternoon. Oh for my days on the farm! Thanks, Cathy.

GAF,

St. Mary’s pork roast has been on my must-do list for the last ten years. It is up there with the 4th of July, strawberry picking, the county fair and Memorial day picnics as the gentle rituals of summer. We didn’t arrive to the pork roast until 2:30 PM, so our first job was find the perfect picnic place in the shade:



While the kids ran around on the rides, I visited the guys chopping up the pig. Unfortunately, they were finishing up the last pig of the day, which meant I didn’t quite get as much cracklin’s as I would have preferred.



The old saying, “One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure” is in practice here. All the cracklin’s not requested for off-menu are simply tossed away. A couple of Gary’s friends from the BBQ list cater pig roasts. Regretfully they have had the same experience of few wanting the cracklin’s. The populace wants the soft interior meat, which doesn't have the character or taste of the bits near the fire.



This is my plate of food. Under the tri-color corn, which came from Rockford is sauerkraut with bacon, apple sauce and a very ripe tomato salad with cucumber, onions and vinaigrette dressing, which was just outstanding. I had the guys fish out the all the crunchy bits, which were really scarce. I’ve never been impressed with BBQ sauces, so I brought homemade to Gary’s recipes Mustard sauce and BBQ sauce. If I had known you were in the area, then you would have been welcome to share.



I’m not surprised the corn wasn’t sweet. I think it has more to do with handling after picking than the corn itself. At the baked goods tent, they were selling baker’s dozen bags of corn. The corn was not only very warm to the touch, the bags were filled with condensed water, which made it appear the corn was cooked and now leftover. It turns out they stored the corn out in the afternoon sun: sugar to starch express. I am certain they would have tasted better if they were handled better. After I learned this, I didn’t buy any corn despite an attractive price.

I am very pleased you found this pork roast worth your time and effort.

Regards,

Geez. When I'm in charge of the pig everybody loves chicharon, because they have no choice but to love chicharon. Really, the Lake Co. pig pickers need to do their work in private and get a coupla cleavers so they can hack up the rinds into tiny flavor crystals and slip them into the pork. No one wants to see sausage made, either (present company excluded). Imagine how awful the sausage that is made before an audience of hungry soccer moms.

Cathy2

Do you know the 2009 date for this?

Dodger

dodger wrote:Cathy2

Do you know the 2009 date for this?

Dodger

Looks to be on August 8 according to this flyer.

based on Cathy's great reviews & pics of past years, the great price, and the fact that I do not eat enough pork, I am going to really try to get out to this event with the family in tow this year.

thanks for the reviews, and thelink to the flyer of this years date.

JeffB wrote:Imagine how awful the sausage that is made before an audience of hungry soccer moms.

Banner quote! (though I plan on making my own sausage soon, and was a soccer mom until we decided poor Sparky had enough this year)

Hi,

It is always the Sunday after the Lake County Fair, which happens to be running this week. Almost all the St. Mary's pigs are purchased at the Lake County Fair auction.

If you want to go full circle, visit the Fair on Saturday to meet, greet and see the pig get auctioned. The prices can sometimes get very wildly high. For example, the Pritzker family have a farm in Lake County. They authorize someone to bid up some animals. Whoever the top bidders may be, they get ribbons and trophys for their displays. The top dollar purchases are also memorialized somewhere on the grounds for all the world to see during the next year. Egos are pumped up on both sides of the bidding process.

One crazy auction moment was the gal showing her prize animal. Her boyfriend pops into the arena to propose. Her future in-laws pay an insane price per pound to contribute toward the wedding.

Mike G's son Myles has a lamb entered in the 4-H division at the Fair. This is his second year at raising a lamb. He is very fortunate to have the parents devoted to driving up to Glenview twice a week to help maintain their animals. This is the stuff that fuels fond memories of childhood.

Regards,

August 8th is a Saturday and Sunday is the 9th.

So is it going to be on both days?

D.

Myles and Arachnophobia:



I made a pair of little short documentaries about Myles and last year's lamb, Triskaidekaphobia:

http://www.vimeo.com/1033619
http://www.vimeo.com/1425510

dodger wrote:August 8th is a Saturday and Sunday is the 9th.

So is it going to be on both days?

D.

Thank you for questioning, because I might have missed the pig roast! In the past, they had music on Saturday and the roast on Sunday. They have combined it all into one day: Saturday.

The lowdown, which will be repeated on the events board:

St. Mary's 35th Annual Pork and Corn Roast

Gates open: 2 PM

Dinner is served: 4:30 to 7:30 PM

Dinner tickets: Adults: $10, Children 5-10: $4. Children 4 and under: Free

They do sell beer, beverages and ice cream. There is also a bake sale.

Live Music:
4 PM - 6 PM: Vinyl Highway (60s and 70s music)
6:30 - 8 PM: Private Drive (Southern rock music)
8:30 - 11 PM: OUt of Storage (a bit of everything)


St. Mary's of the Annunciation
22333 W Erhart Road
Mundelein, IL 60060
Tel: (847) 223-0010

Fortunately Mom2 lives very close to this event, so likely she would have caught this. But who knows, we could have shown up Sunday for nothing!

Thanks again for commenting!

Regards,

So the auction at the Lake County Fair was today; at first it looked as though prices would be significantly down from last year, where the champion steers went for as much as $15,000 last year, they only went for about $4-5000 this year. But then lamb prices seemed to be up. The Glenview Clovers had a better breed this year, but still, we went from about $225 for a lamb last year to about $800 this year. Who knows why, but Myles is excited about having money to save and grow and is, I kid you not, reading an issue of Smart Money he found around the house as his bedtime reading tonight.



The Grand Champion of the 4-H competition is supposed to treat everybody to lunch before the auction so lunch today was homemade sloppy Joes (wouldn't pass GWiv's Liquid Smoke detector) with storebought cole slaw and cookies and other homey things. Later Cathy2 and Louisa Chu turned up and Louisa wound up interviewing Myles on video about his experiences raising his lamb and how he feels about raising what he knows will be meat. I deliberately stayed away so he could do his interview without worrying about dad listening in; when she posts it, I look forward to hearing what he had to say, and being surprised by something thoughtful beyond his years.

Louisa mentioned what Michael Ruhlman posted after taking his 10-year-old to see Food Inc.:

Upon leaving the theater, James said, "That was a really good movie, Dad. (pause) Kind of makes you want to be a vegetarian. (pause) Kind of makes you not want to eat."

Kind of makes you not want to eat. How sad is that?... Food, this gift that nourishes our body and soul, that brings us together in celebration and in grief, we are putting it in the hands of people who don't give a shit about anything except profit.

I feel like my son has, at 10, a stronger and better rounded sense of where our food comes from and what it takes to make it happen than most adults in this country today.

Hi,

I unfortunately missed witnessing Myles in the ring guiding his lamb around as the bids shot up. I heard when Myles first walked into the ring, he was introduced as living in Chicago, "From possibly the last farm in Chicago." I would have loved to share in that laughter.

Earlier in the week, I offered a vision to Mike of Myles in college sharing his experiences of raising lambs. I suggested anyone would wonder if he really lived in Chicago, because raising livestock is such an uncommon city kid experience.

Louisa and I arrived just as the last lamb was being auction. Not seeing Mike or his family, I attempted to call him. I then saw Mike across the ring from us. I reflexively began waving. The loudspeaker blared, "Lady, are you waving at someone or bidding on a lamb? You might just be the highest bidder." Not precisely what I intended to do. As the announcer continued to comment about my behavior, I slinked off to meet Mike and his family. It was a bit embarassing and almost pretty costly.

It was a treat to meet Myle's lamb before transitioning to its new owner. One of the lambs sold at auction was going to be adopted. The others will be enjoyed in the near future. I wished I had seen Myles in the ring guiding his lamb. I sense he is more comfortable in his role of animal husbandry and his role in the foodchain.

The Gebert family certainly has a lot to proud.

Regards,

Congratulations, Myles!

I love that last picture. A real keeper.

On the last day, after Arachnophobia had been sold, I thought maybe it would be interesting to see if Myles had anything to say to Michael Ruhlman's 10-year-old about where food comes from and all that, based on his experience raising his own food. I shot a short video clip which is here: http://vimeo.com/5914768

Hi,

On Saturday, when the topic of eating his lamb came up, he said, "It would be like eating my friend." He wasn't opposed to eating lamb, he simply didn't want to eat his lamb.

Regards,

The 2011 event will be August 6th, starting at 2:00.

I have always found the food to be very good.

D