In the late 70's and early 80's the war on fat in meat commenced. Pork positioned themselves as the other white meat and bred all of the fat out of pork over time. At the same time pork production moved from small, outdoor production to centralized commercial breeding using line breeding and hybrids that can basically only survive in confinement situations. Hook space at processing plants became dominated by cooperate owned farms and the independent producer is now virtually extinct. When they bred the fat out and pushed pork as a chicken replacement people had a hard time cooking it. Lean meat is hard to cook, especially of you cook it to well done. It dries out and gets tough. Enter the injection of saline to pork.Buy your pork from an independent producer and you will see three things if they do it right. Actual marbling in the meat. An actual rind of fat on the carcass vs almost no fat on commercial animals. Fat=flavor.A completely different texture of the meat. By being outside the meat will have a firmness that doesn't exist in Tyson and Smithfield pork. If you can get Berkshire or Chesterwhite you have a good start. A breed like Red Wattle will be heavy fat but damn good. Even better if they take the hog to over 300 pounds.

I'm kinda curious to see what Jewels charges for rib roasts this year. I wouldn't mind a smoking comeback with a small three bone roast cooked for a few hours with plenty of horseradish sauce

Find a butcher. the meat in grocery stores is far less in quality.

I agree wholeheartedly about good butchers, but to find one on the South Side is virtually impossible. So you have to adapt, improvise, overcome.

worn down ? I'd rather shop there any day than Mariano's or some trash like that