Is it that bad?

I've found it to be good, bad, or ugly. Depending on the pig.

I have killed and ate quite a few over the last 40 years and they vary in taste. I have had some that were very good , most just marginal and some just not good. All shot in the same area and prepared in many ways including but not limited to braising , fried, bbq, and smoked. I like it the best braised the same way you make osso bucco. Not bad ground use into a fresh sausage or summer sausage.

I really have no explanation for the variation in taste. I have had bad and good despite sex, size or what they were doing at the time.

The objectionable odor/taste is referred to as "boar taint" and can occur once boars reach puberty. The meat produces an off-odor when heated—a soldering iron or piece of metal heated by a torch can be used to test for it.

Apparently some people are not sensitive to it, which is why there are articles that state in absolutes, "Older boars above 150 pounds or so make great pork chops."

Yup, boar taint. Of 3 whole pork bellies that I bought from Costco to them had the bore taint monster nasty you might as well just sit down in the barn with your fork after you get done milking cows and start eating off the floor... Damn near got me broke



OF.. ever buying the stuff again and I love me some oink sad chit...

Boar taint is actually prohibited by food quality regulations in most
countries, the U.S. included, meaning that meat with
boar taint cannot be sold directly to the consumer. If any
intact boar is slaughtered, its meat is further processed
into products like sausage and pepperoni; cooking the
meat and adding spices for such products prevents
boar taint from being detected.

https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/content/dam/pubs_ext_vt_edu/APSC/APSC-174/APSC-174.pdf

Yes and will stink up the house when cooking. Shooting wild pigs, the smell becomes something you remember. I mostly buy whole hogs from friends raising them and have them processed these days, but I've bought sausage at a store on occasion in which I could smell it. Though, it's been some time since I smelled it in store bought.

The biggest wild boar I have eaten was around 225 pounds. I killed it in January and it had been primarily feeding on agriculture. It tasted like pork from the grocery and had no smell to it but it was allot tougher. I have probably eaten meat from 30 wild hogs ranging from 5 pounds up to 225 pounds and none of them tasted bad but I don't live in an area that has hogs so I have to make a couple trips a year down to GA to kill pigs. Otherwise, I would eat allot more wild boar and probably encountered the taint smell. The last pig we killed which was early last April was a 195 lb boar. It tasted fine but it did have a mild odor which did not affect the flavor and you could not smell it when it was cooking. I think if we had killed it a couple weeks later it might not have been edible. I think diet and time of year has allot to do with the smell and the taste. Hog meat also spoils allot quicker than deer so if I was to kill a hog in hot weather I would want to gut it immediately and pack its cavity with ice if I was going to try and eat it.

The interesting thing that I have found is that the guys from Alaska feel the same way about black bear as the guys from Texas feel about wild boar. I have eaten meat from 3 black bears and I think its great but I have never eaten a fish eating black bear killed in the fall.

Best one I ever heard of, was from a friend. He was about 20 and lived with a classmate in a trailer. The other guy got a billy goat one day. Castrated him soon afterwards.

One night Jim came into the trailer with a God-awesome stench. David had butchered the goat and was cooking him.
Said...I cut him a couple weeks ago! LOL