Published in Food Arts, November 2009

A Pork Based Love Story

By MARIA FINN

Pork is popular. More and more people are becoming card-carrying Bacon of the Month Club members. There's the Grateful Palate where $190.00 gets you a six- month mailing of bacon from small artisanal suppliers around the country, along with a "Bacon Geek" tee shirt. The Bacon is Meat Candy Company hunts down slabs of premium bacon for their members, who they refer to as a newly arrived "bacon-vert" or a well experienced "Bacon-noisseur."

Appetizer menus around the county increasingly include specialty homemade salumi platters featuring Italian favorites like spicy coppa, lardo, and prosciutto. Some places are upping the anti by finding ways to use more and more parts of the pig. Oliveto in Oakland has a "Whole Hog" event once a year where the tongue, brains and trotters are served a la carte.

The evolution of salumi in America is often linked to Armondino Batali's journey to Italy to learn how to make traditional Italian salami. Then his son, Mario Batali learned the craft and has used his considerable knife skills to debone a whole hog, and write how-to recipes for this. John Stewart is chef who worked alongside him, deboning and smoking the pig.

John Stewart cherished pork products so much he had a pig tattooed on his arm. He believes it was his enthusiasm for pork that ultimately won over his wifeóDuskie Estes. She is a chef and was a vegetarian but his passion prevailed over her convictions. Her first bite of meat in years was a taste of his special salumi. Now married, they co-own the restaurant Bovolo in Healdsburg, where the versatility of pork is expressed in everything from home cured prosciutto to freshly made sausage.

At both Bovolo and their nearby Santa Rosa restaurant, Zazu, they espouse a "snout to tail" philosophy, and out of respect to the animals, use the entirety of them, so appetizers like pig heart and pork cheek sandwiches or pig head's soup are not unusual on their menu. The pigs are heritage breeds and are antibiotic and hormone free, as well as free range. They also own Black Pig Meat, Co. and people outside the area can purchase their specialty bacon online at www.blackpigmeatco.com where fans can join their Community Supported Bacon Club, CSBC and have a monthly supply of bacon sent right to their home. The pork bellies are dry cured with brown sugar and smoked with apple wood, earning them quite a following in Northern California bacon aficionados. They raise and butcher a few of their own pigs, which are fed on chestnuts to enhance the flavor of their fat. Once a year they throw a big BLT party and ask all their friends and neighbors to bring tomatoes and lettuce from their garden. And they supply the bacon and truffle aioli.

Their daughters, Brydie, 8 and McKenzie, 6 years old are used to pork, and John has converted one into a snout-to-tail eater, "Brydie will eat anything, and I mean stuff like a pig's ear salad. The younger one is more of a traditionalist, she's a ribs and pork chop child."