Taylor Market butcher Danny Johnson confidently surveyed half of a 160-pound pig as it was laid out before him and some 30 participants at the market’s “Butchering - 101” class.

“Here’s Wilbur,” Johnson said jokingly, as he realigned the edges on his 10-inch knife.

Johnson clarified that when steeling a blade, you aren’t actually sharpening it, but rather bringing the tiny bent edges upright — little facts like this kept participants’ heads nodding and eyebrows raised.

Each participant received a diagram displaying common retail cuts of pork with lines pointing to their origins on the pig in its undivided form.

People perused the sheet, easily identifying most of the cuts. Meanwhile, Johnson reached for an enormous cleaver, called a “hog splitter,” and confessed that he wasn’t very good at going off of charts.

“I didn’t really learn that way,” Johnson said.

After knifing his way to the bone on the pig’s back leg, Johnson grabbed a 26-inch hacksaw from its place on the wall. In two to three controlled swipes, he separated the hind leg from the pig’s body.

“Let the saw do the work,” Johnson said.

Quizzing people on pork cuts as he went to work slicing through meat, Johnson talked about a delicious meal of slow-roasted hog trotters he had enjoyed once in France.

“With the hog, you use it all,” Johnson said. He talked about how the pig reaches a kind of cult status because there are so many things you can do with it.

“Anyone eaten smoked neck-bone?” he asked.

South Land Park resident Laine Keneller considers herself a big fan of the market, and regarded the information at the meeting as being extremely helpful for when she’s shopping.

“It’ll be good to know the different cuts,” Keneller said.

Not only were attendees tutored on everything the pig has to offer, but they were also coached on what to look for when purchasing a whole hog.

Johnson told his audience to look for the “establishment stamp” and to know your supplier. If any pig-purchasing were to go awry, an establishment stamp would hold the vendor accountable for recourse, he said.

With Johnson’s class eager to get their hands and knives on a slab of meat, the wisdom he shared from his 27 years of experience was geared toward helping them avoid purchasing mistakes.

Some mistakes are inevitable, however. Butchering blunders are bound to occur when learning new cutting techniques, Johnson said. He told a story or two about battle scars earned while removing the pig’s hip bone, and assured the class that at some point, they were going to cut themselves.

This class wasn’t at all squeamish or intimidated by the sight of Johnson skillfully slicing away the pig’s skin, but he said that some customers see him working behind the counter and express disgust. To these particular visitors he asks, “Where did you think it came from?”

“People are coming back to old-style butchering,” Johnson said.

The class wouldn’t have been complete without a meal served, and at $40 per person you could expect that something delicious was on the menu.

Since the day’s focus was on the many offerings of the pig, it was only natural that sausage would be highlighted —bratwurst, to be specific.

“Any sausage-maker worth his salt doesn’t give away his recipe,” Johnson said.

However, in plain view of the class, he flavored a large tub of ground pork with red wine, corn syrup and two bottles of Sierra Nevada before churning the final product out into natural casings. Sticking to his own admonition, certain spices were mixed in unannounced.

The bratwurst coiled on the table and was then twisted into separate links.

Carmichael resident Edna Fong came to the class because she was curious to know where everything came from. Fong said Johnson was a “wealth of knowledge.”

Though many consumers take pre-packaged meat, as well as a plethora of other grocery items, for granted, others are excited to take up the challenge of learning how to do more things themselves.

Johnson and Taylor’s Market remain dedicated to educating customers about the journey their food takes before going home with them.

Meat-cutting is a dying art, and Johnson said, “We’re trying to preserve it.”

To view future events offered by Danny Johnson and Taylor’s Market, click here.