temperature, due to the muscle fibers contracting and
squeezing out their contents. Eating the meat from the two
roasts confirmed as much, though, to be honest, both were
pretty crazy-juicy and moist. But, the high-temperature roast
showed at least one definite advantage over the low-roast:
the skin. In the hotter roast, the skin turned out crisp and
crunchy (although not amazingly so), while in the low-
temperature roast, the skin softened but was floppy and
flaccid—a total bust.
So is there a way to get juicier meat and crisp skin? The
problem is that cooking a great piece of pork skin requires
two different approaches.
SKIN JOB
There’s a common misconception that animal skin—chicken
skin, turkey skin, pork rinds—is made up entirely of fat.
This is not true. There certainly is a lot of fat in the skin and
directly underneath it (necessary to help warm-blooded
animals maintain their body temperature), but skin also
contains a great deal of water and connective proteins that,
just like the connective tissues in slow-twitch muscles, must
be broken down via long cooking.
On top of that, once the connective tissue has softened
sufficiently, moisture must be forced out of it and the
remaining proteins heated until they coagulate and stiffen
up. It’s the combination of these three things—connective
tissue breakdown, moisture loss, and firming of proteins—
that leads to crisp-but-not-tough skin.
When a pork shoulder is cooked at 375°F, all three of