Walking into Maremma, a Texan-meets-Tuscan restaurant on West 10th Street, where bullhorns and pictures of white Chianina cattle serve as decor, you would not peg Chef Cesare Casella as a pork man. Yet the pig comprises a full third of his menu. The pork in his bolognese is Berkshire; his “white prosciutto” is cured from an English Large Black; and for his pork chop, Casella prefers a Stonewall, a pig he created himself by crossbreeding a Large Black with a Yorkshire. For someone so prolific in pork, it seems natural to ask Casella the first time he tasted a heritage pig. Instead, he swats away the word like a fly.
“I think the word harry-taj is too abused,” he said on a recent Friday night, his thick Italian accent shrouding almost every word. The restaurant had just opened, and Casella had changed into his white chef’s coat, his pocket full of rosemary sprigs (Casella’s take on a boutonnière). “Soon, we’re going to get heritage pork from China,” he says, explaining how the term to describe slow-growing, pastured breeds of pigs has become as bastardized as commercial, cross-bred pork. “What is more important is to ask, ‘What do they eat? How are they raised?’ ”
Since the late ’90s, Casella has been nosing around Upstate, picking out pork raised on small family farms like the one he grew up on in Italy. Pumping him for his first bite is useless; he’s been eating good pork all his life.
We, on the other hand, have only become so lucky in the last 10 years. That’s around the time heritage pork was first introduced to the city, a seminal event for those who grew up eating industrially-raised pigs, bred to be lean and white like chicken. Before the fatty pig’s comeback, we did not eagerly drink from glasses rimmed with pork cracklings at restaurants called Porchetta (the name of an Italian pork roast); nor did we pass the lardo to spread on our bread at Del Posto; nor were chefs in the business of breeding their own pigs. There were no blogs dedicated to pork, and the New York Press never published a pork-lovers guide to New York—until now. (As Casella told me: “I don’t know if heritage pork is more trendy for the chef or the journalist who writes about it.”)
Well, touché. I was still curious where the madness began. A call to Cabbage Hill, the first family farm that sold rare breeds of pigs directly to New York chefs, produced two names: Daniel Boulud and Peter Hoffman. Only one returned my call for comment. “Was I the first [to serve it]?” asked Hoffman of Savoy, this city’s answer to Chez Panisse. “No. But was I a pioneer? Definitely.” He can’t remember his first bite of pastured pork either, though he dates it to sometime around ’97 or ’98. “I do know that all our palates awoke and said, ‘My God! What is this?’ Everyone who tasted it could taste the difference.”
Today, he gets his meat from Heritage Foods USA and Flying Pigs Farm—a case study in just how pork crazed we’ve become. Three years ago, the husband and wife team Michael Yezzi and Jennifer Small still had day jobs and were losing money on their 50-odd, rare breeds of heritage pigs. Today, they’ve got 380 running around, Yezzi is farming full-time and the two are turning a slight profit. “I think this is more than a trend,” said Small. “Americans are just eating better food. I’d like to think that people aren’t going to go back to supermarket pork any more than they’re going to go back to Wonderbread.”
Which portends well considering February 18 marks the Year of the Pig on the Chinese calendar. According to Eileene Yin-Fei Lo, Chinese cookbook author and New School instructor, the Chinese astrological sign connotes a successful career, making this a good year for business—or not. (“It’s not always true,” she warns.) What is for certain is that roast pork will figure largely in Chinese New Year’s meals. “The Chinese prize pork highly because you can do so many things with it,” she explained, a statement I heard echoed in so many of the chefs I interviewed.
“I think Homer Simpson put it best: ‘It’s a magical, mystical animal,’” said David Chang, proselytizer of artisnally-produced pork. “It’s true—you get everything you need from the pig. From head to tail, it’s delicious.”
As if you need any more convincing, take a peek at our paean to pork in NYC.
| THE PORK LIST Next Hot Cut of Pork Many chefs still crown the belly as their favorite cut, but it’s been popular for so long now. When pressed to name the next big thing in pork, Chang wouldn’t say anything definitively (“I like the whole hog equally”). Mario Batali, in a rushed email, wrote: “Neck and jowl/cheek. [Both have an] incredible, rich and deep flavor.” Dan Barber of Blue Hill seconded Batali’s offal bet, and Casella puts his money on the shank: “because they’re nice and they’re the right price.” And Peter Hoffman predicts that “more and more people are going to be doing their own curing.”
Shop for the Chop
In the age of haute pork, many places now produce fantastic chops (The Little Owl comes to mind). But there was something singular about the Stonewall chop at Maremma. Seasoned with salt and pepper, Cesera Casella’s heritage hybrid was insanely tender and bursting with juicy pork flavor. One bite and you felt you were on the Thanksgiving Farm where the pig was raised, tasting the grasses, vegetables and grains it feasted on throughout its pampered life. Heritage Foods USA also sells the Stonewall to ‘ino, The Cleaver Company, Lupa, The Tasting Room, ’Cesca, Gramercy Tavern, Del Posto, 5 Ninth and WD~50.
Pulled Pork Sandwich Winner
As much as it pains me to crown such hoity-toity ’cue, Blue Smoke’s pulled pork sandwich is the city’s best rendition of this Southern staple. Unlike the sandwiches at RUB and Dinosaur, the smoke didn’t dominate the flavor, nor did the sauce—the one downfall of Daisy May’s (a close second). Instead, it was a complex mix of spices, smoke and a feather-light slather of sauce on a toasted, buttered bun.
Best Pork-centric Blog
“Pork is the most maligned meat,” says J. Slab, whose name has been withheld to protect his job. So he uses The Porkchop Express (porkchop-express.blogspot.com) to praise it properly. His favorite pork in NYC includes: smoked ribs from the Sikorski Meat Market in Greenpoint, Prosciutto di Parma from Di Palo on Grand Street, pork tenderloin from Flying Pigs Farm (at the Union Sq. and Prospect Park Greenmarkets), Black Forest bacon from Schaller & Webber in Astoria and the banh mi from Saigon Banh Mi.
Chinatown Has the Meat
Eileene Yin-Fei Lo takes her classes at the New School on field trips to the Siu Cheong Meat at 89 Mulberry St., where you can find roast pork, dim sum to-go or ready to wrap at home.
Year of Pig Stamps
Both China and Canada are commemorating the Chinese New Year with pig stamps. China’s are way cooler (they’re scratch and sniff), but Canada’s are much easier to get. Call 800-565-4632 (it works from the States) and charge a pack of 25 ($13 CAD) to your credit card.
Lard Largesse
No joke: lard is prized by pastry chefs, and you can’t make an authentic carnitas taco without it. And since it has both saturated and monounsaturated fats (aka the good fats), there are people—like Nina Planck, director of the Real Food farmer’s markets—who insist it’s no worse than butter. Flying Pigs Farm offers both the leaf lard for making pastry and 2-inch thick back fat—which, when rendered, ratchets up the flavor of everything from black beans to biscuits.
David Chang’s Pork Bun Recipe
Gotcha! If only he would give it up. When asked to divulge the goods on the best pork bun in New York, he said, simply, “Uh-uh.” As a consolation prize, here’s his version of the Momofuku Braised Pork Belly :
Ingredients: 2 liters braising liquid, either chicken, pork, beef or fresh Dashi stock (Japanese soup stock); mirin (rice wine), to taste; soy sauce, to taste; one pork belly, skin-on, cut into 2-inch cubes; one garlic clove; salt & pepper; one whole garlic; 1 TB minced ginger; two daikon radishes, peeled and cut into 1.5-inch rounds; lemon segments; scallions for garnish Instructions: Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Heat braising liquid to a rolling boil and season with mirin and soy sauce. Season belly with salt and pepper and brown all sides in a hot pan. Deglaze the pan with rice wine. Add juices to braising liquid. Set aside meat. In a casserole or small Dutch oven, add seared pork belly pieces, garlic and ginger. Cover with pork with liquid and bring to a boil. When liquid is boiling, cover and place in oven. After an hour, add the radish, cover and return to oven. Pork belly should be done at the three hour mark or until meat does not give when pressed. Carefully remove the belly and daikon. Strain the braising liquid and skim the fat. Chill the pork and daikon. When the belly is firm, slice off the skin. To serve, heat a pan and glaze pork belly with the braising liquid, trying to brown the de-skinned fat area. Reheat the daikon, and serve on plate with belly on top. Add braising liquid and garnish with scallions and lemon segments. How to Roast a Pig in New York Without Setting Your Building on Fire
First, acquire the pig. Since you can’t actually buy a heritage suckling pig (selling one young just isn’t fiscally responsible), Jen Small suggests roasting whole shoulders or legs, which at roughly 15 pounds, equals a baby pig. Then, buy a Caja China (online at lacajachina.com). Yes it’s pricey (the smallest one costs $205), but the roasting box, built by a Cubano who knows his pork, will not only cut the cooking time down to a few hours, it won’t break any fire codes. Plus it comes with failsafe instructions. (For a marinade recipe Peter Hoffman used for his birthday pig roast, visit nosetotail.blogspot.com.)
Carnitas Tacos To Die For
Of all the ethnic pork dishes I could have singled out for scrutiny—pernil for instance, or jerk pork—the carnitas taco stands out for its porkiness. The classic preparation calls for simmering a shoulder in water until the water evaporates and the meat is left to crisp in its own fat. Tacquerias then shred or chop the pork and fry it some more, which makes it extremely difficult to spend a week sampling these instant heart attacks in an attempt to crown one the winner. But after two trips to Roosevelt Ave., a trek to Sunset Park, a taco stand at 96th and Broadway, a tortilleria in Bushwick, plus the acquired taste memory of multiple Brooklyn bodegas and tacos eaten at haute Mexi spots like Bonita, only one stood out for its juicy, crackled pork: Tehuitzingo Mexican Deli at 10th Ave. and W. 47th St. (212-397-5956). Unlike every other taco, there were no hunks of fat to pick out, and rather than soft cubes of often tasteless pork, Tehuitzingo’s boasted crunchy bits of shredded shoulder full of fat-laced flavor. The salsa verde and onion-cilantro garnish could have been fresher, but Tehuitzingo was the only fried pork taco with no false advertising.
Pair Pork With Wine
Elizabeth Karmel is on a mission to get people to “embrace barbecue with something else than beer.” In addition to teaching the Authentic Southern BBQ class at the Institute of Culinary Education, the North Carolinian author of Taming the Grill is now teaching a “Swine and Wine” course on Feb. 24 at ICE. Her pork pairing pointers: A light red, she says, works well with most cuts, sparkling rosés compliment the smoky saltiness of bacon and zinfandels are perfect partners for pulled pork and ribs.
|
