Just found out how many whole hogs Myron Mixon cooked in a single year

I was reading an old interview from 2010 and he said he went through over 400 hogs that year for competitions and his restaurant. That's more than one a day, which really puts the scale of his operation into perspective. Did any other pitmasters from that era work at that kind of volume?

3 comments

3 Comments

grant.kevin1mo ago

Ed Mitchell's whole hog operation in North Carolina had to be up there too.

mitchell.shane23d ago

What about the wood supply for a cook that big? @barbara429 mentioned the festival volume, and that's what gets me. Sourcing enough good oak or hickory to run those pits for days is a huge job itself. It's not just about cooking skill, it's a full time logistics fight. Finding, cutting, and storing that much wood without it going green is a nightmare. You think anyone else was dealing with that scale of fuel problem?

barbara4291mo ago

Yeah, Ed Mitchell's crew was definitely in that league. They were cooking for thousands of people at events and running a busy restaurant. I remember reading they'd do 30 hogs just for a single festival weekend. That kind of volume is a whole different ball game from your average backyard cook.