Warning: Graphic Images

All right. I am feeling a little better now. I slept, and I no longer feel like I ate an over-and-under washer and dryer.

I will now tell you about the pig and the feast. As I said earlier, Val Prieto and I prepared a stuffed pig for his father's 74th birthday party. Val's dad had no idea the party was brewing (he claims), and before he arrived, he was actually complaining that nothing special was planned.

Here's the makeshift oven Val threw together in his backyard:

It's exactly what it looks like. Concrete blocks. In case you want to build one yourself, I'll also point out that the whole thing sits on a metal pan. The charcoal is on the bottom, there's a wire grate suspended on the first level of blocks, and we put a large cheapo aluminum pan directly under the pig to prevent direct heat from burning the skin.

Val's dad was moved to tears when he saw that. Pork does that to me, too, but he may have had other reasons.

Here is Mr. Piggy, enjoying a nice sauna. He is stuffed to bursting with congri from Blue Sky Food by the Pound. Val sewed up his belly with twine.

Here's the thermometer Val stuck in the top of the box. He just drilled a hole in the plywood and stuck it in. You can see the nice slow-cooking temperature. If it had been up to me, I would also have used a probe thermometer with a cable, with the tip in the stuffing. But we didn't really need it.

Here is the birthday boy with the pig:

Here's the yuca I fixed. The plate is about 18" across.

I drafted Maggie and her aunt to help me cook it. All I did was peel and slice it and make the mojo and season the water.

Here's some of the congri that came out of the pig.

Here's a shot of the family:

Congri is rice with black beans and black bean broth and pork mixed in. It was pretty good when Val bought it, but after it cooked in the pig, it was sublime. The onion and garlic and cumin from the mojo soaked into it and mixed with the pork fat...I get dizzy just remembering.

I don't want to post all the photos; Val will probably want to put some of the remaining shots on his blog. Sorry about the focus problems. We don't call Tommy the Official Drunken ManCamp Photographer for nothing.

The brining was a huge success. There are two problems you can have with a pig roasted with mojo. First, the skin may not get crisp, and second, there may be a gamey pork smell. This pig didn't have a trace of that smell. Oh, it had it when we opened the box. But I brined it in salt, baking soda, and bitter orange, and we injected the bigger parts of the pig with mojo. By the time it went in the oven, it smelled better than we did.

Okay, not an impressive claim, but still.

It was a fantastic party. My old man came over and ate. He told me how his father used to buy and release pigs in the woods in Eastern Kentucky. Old timers used to mark their pigs' ears and then let them run loose and get fat on nuts and so on, which they called "mast." In the fall, they'd round them up and slaughter them. My mother's mother used to cure wonderful hams, and she made her own sausage and canned it in pork fat. Wonderful stuff. Now people go to the store and buy Oscar Mayer.

If you look at these pictures and whatever pictures Val chooses to post, you'll notice something nice about them. Other than the horrendous piles of steaming food. There's a big generational span at Cuban parties. Val's dad and my dad were there, and so was Val's nephew Brandon, who took his first steps a while back.

One of the unhealthiest things about modern American life is the segregation of generations. We see old age as a disease or a disability, and we rush to jam our parents and grandparents into homes. Our kids are in the way, so we send them to day care. On the weekends, the last thing we want is to see our parents or spend time with our kids.

Cubans don't work that way. If you go to a salsa club at three in the morning, you'll find yourself out on the floor with couples in every age group. If you go to a party at someone's house, all the old people will be there, in the best seats, eating the best food.

Segregating generations makes us weak. Young people don't know a damn thing about life; we're supposed to learn from our elders. That doesn't happen when they're playing shuffleboard at Century Village and we're doing poppers in sleazy clubs on South Beach. People are supposed to pass wealth on to their children, and part of that wealth is wisdom and knowledge. People who ignore their elders cut off their own strength, and they're so conceited, they don't even know it.

That doesn't happen at ManCamp.

It was a great party, and we may have another pig coming up in May. So stay tuned and save room for flan.

Here is Brandon's take. And here's Val's.