Pig Wings?

Perhaps the perfect testimony to the transformation of modern pork is the "discovery" of the Pig Wing, a two-ounce piece of pork cut from the fibula of a ham shank. Once upon a time people presumably understood that a ham had a bone in it, one often used to flavor soups and stews once the ham was carved and eaten. But because consumers expressed a preference for the spiral-sliced and boneless hams that were marketed to them by the industry as more convenient meat, pork processors started removing the shank before processing, creating the possibility for the return of the repressed as a new product to market.

The food writer John T. Edge of, among other things, the Southern Foodways Alliance, wrote a great article on this development in his recent "United Tastes" column for The New York Times (here) on November 30th in the "Dining" section, where I learned that a big challenge has been coming up with a more pleasant sounding name for these ham shanks. Already in play are "pork hammers," "sluggers," squealers, and, of course, "Pig Wings." Look for them to perhaps be one of the breakthrough pork products in the next year or two.

I was particularly pleased with the illustration by Xaquín G.V. (above) that accompanied Edge's article, as it serves as a reminder that ham comes from pig, a point one wouldn't think would need to be made much anymore, but that given the incredible modern disconnection between our meat and its sources in living animals (a subject I discuss in both PIG and in my contribution to the special issue of Antennae on pigs, downloadable as a pdf here), perhaps this was indeed "news" to some folks.

Breaking the Association of Pigs and Truffles

The Los Angeles Times ran a nice article (here) this morning about the spike in truffle prices in France, largely due to a drought that has reduced the size of the annual harvest. The article is accompanied by a picture of a truffle hunter and his dog, not his pig. It goes on to note, sadly, that "truffle-hunting pigs--bigger, hungrier and harder to manage--have largely fallen out of favor." Perhaps this headline in The Onion--"Airport Security Pig Finds Concealed Truffles"--was a sign of the times. For a brief history of why pigs have traditionally proved so good at finding truffles, see this 1982 article by Walter Sullivan in the New York Times.

Modern Marvels: The Pig on the History Channel

The History Channel will be showing a program on the pig this Saturday, December 1st. According to the description of the program (here) in the "upcoming episodes" announcement,

It is said that the pig is as smart as a three-year-old human. The pancreas, heart valve and intestines of the pig have been transplanted into human bodies, yet the primary use of the pig is for food. Watch the pig transform into bacon, ham, ribs and sausage, using a high tech water knife, at Burger's Smokehouse in Missouri. Then Chef Chris Cosentino re-creates old world dishes from pig parts and culinary artisans attempt to duplicate long-vanished pork specialties like prosciutto and acorn-fed pigs.

Should be interesting.

By the way, sorry for the lag in posting. I have either been traveling, sick, or both over much of November. Once I'm back from this weekend's conference in San Diego I should be able to resume regular blogging. Best...

"Pigging Out and About" BBQ Tour

I was taking a look at the Oxford American site (their annual music issue is out now and is a must have) and found a link to The American Table Culinary Tours, a group that leads "field trips" to important sites for American cuisine. The one that caught my eye was the September 2007 Memphis barbeque tour "Pigging Out and About" (here), led by Lolis Eric Elie, author of Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbeque Country and editor of Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbeque, and folks from the Southern Foodways Alliance. I imagine everyone had quite a good time. There are some excellent-looking tours of Detroit cuisine and Kentucky bourbon scheduled for 2008, by the way.

The Colonial Ham

David Shields, an important and innovative literary scholar based at the University of South Carolina, has a great essay on the history of American ham called "The Search for the Cure" in the current issue of Common-Place (here), an online journal of early American history sponsored by the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Mass.

Shield's essay traces the various means of curing hams in the colonial period, tracing the histories of "two schools of ham production: the dry-cure sect, who would increasingly view themselves as purists and traditionalists, and the wet curists, who regarded themselves as experimentalists in taste, economy, and scientific agriculture, yet whose pork brined in a barrel was the staple of the common household." It's a great read, especially for those of you interested in the history of American foodways.

Today's image comes from an on-line article by Patricia Mitchell on the history of the Smithfield ham. The image is of a circa-1930 Baltimore newspaper advertisement that features a peanut-shaped hog and Smithfield cured meats. Mitchell's essay can be found here at foodhistory.com.

A Bacon Candy Bar!

Here's another product in the line of thought that says everything is better with bacon: Mo's Bacon Bar, a milk chocolate bar with chunks of Applewood smoked bacon in it. Lisa found this on Boing Boing (here), although the best description comes from the website of the manufacturer, Vosges, where the owner and chocolatier, Katrina Markoff, writes this about her invention:

Crisp, buttery, compulsively irresistible bacon and milk chocolate combination has long been a favorite of mine. I started playing with this combination at the tender age of six while eating chocolate chip pancakes drenched in maple syrup. Beside my chocolate-laden cakes laid three strips of fried bacon, just barely touching a sweet pool of maple syrup. Just a bite of the bacon was too salty and yearned for the sweet kiss of chocolate syrup. In retrospect, perhaps this was a turning point, for on that plate something magical happened: the beginnings of a combination so ethereal and delicious that it would haunt my thoughts until I found the medium to express it--chocolate.

You can get your own for $7.00. Let me know if any of you try it.

The Ossabaw Island Hog on the Menu

My east coast pork connection e-mailed me last week with news of the Il Buco Pig Roast in New York City. The celebration included a porchetta panini, apple ricotta fritters, farmer's market panzanella, and slow-roasted Ossabaw pig. He hadn't heard of the Ossabaw pig, which is a rare breed found only on Ossabaw Island, Georgia. The folks at Slow Food USA have a page dedicated to this rare breed, which you can find here. Information can also be found at the site of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (here).

Another Pig Tattoo

Matt at the Deglazed Blog (here) shares my interest in both pigs and The Simpsons and has charted the creation of his own tattoo that brings the two together. You can find his posting "Kitchen Inked" about his tattoo here. His posting includes the famous clip from "Lisa the Vegetarian" where Homer Simpson refuses to believe that bacon, ham, and pork chops come from the same animal. Here's a photo of Matt's tattoo. As Mr. Burns would say, excellent…

Reynaud's Pork & Sons and the "Porcine Renaissance"

In yesterday's Salon.com (here), Sarah Karnasiewicz road-tested some recipes from chef Stephane Reynaud's Pork & Sons. Reynaud's cookbook/memoir won the Grand Prix de la Gastronomie Francaise in 2005 and has just been released in the U.S. I have a copy on order, so I'll have more about the book soon. Until then, however, here's a useful line from Karnasiewicz's review about our contemporary porcine moment: "the release of the U.S. edition feels right on cue, too: timed to coincide with both the lunar "Year of the Pig" and the porcine renaissance that has been sweeping the American culinary community."