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.

Salon's Pork Week

Salon.com has been running a series of pig-related stories this week under the broader heading Pork Week. The week began with an essay called "Bacon Mania" by Sarah Hepola that sought to explain American's current fascination with bacon. On Tuesday, in "Belly of the Beast," Rebecca Traister described how she has started to cure her own bacon. Today, the entry is a video about Veritas Farms in New Paltz, New York, where they raise Gloucestershire Old Spot and Large Black pigs. The video "Not the Other White Meat" by Caitlin Shamberg and Rebecca Traister, is quite lovely in that the pigs seem quite happy to be pigs. Just be sure to turn the volume down at the start, as the clip is prefaced by an incredibly loud and irritating vodka ad.

It will be interesting to see what else they discuss in this "Pork Week." So far the stories have been interesting but fairly light, perhaps because they seem to take it as a given that Salon readers are familiar with the industrial production of pork and are looking for natural, free range and do-it-yourself alternatives.

FDR on the Proper Use of Pigs

At the blog Lawyers, Guns, and Money the other day the "Presidential Statement of the Day" came from Franklin Roosevelt in a speech to farmers in Washington, D.C. on May 14th, 1935. As part of his response to the concern that food needed for relief may have been destroyed wastefully, he noted:

The crocodile tears shed by the professional mourners of an old and obsolete order over the slaughter of little pigs and over other measures to reduce surplus agricultural inventories deceive very few thinking people in this country, and least of all the farmers themselves.

I have always supposed, ever since I was able to play around, that the acknowledged destiny of a pig is sausage, or ham, or bacon, or pork. It was in those forms--as sausage, ham, bacon, or pork--that millions of pigs were consumed by vast numbers of needy people who otherwise would have had to do without them.

I'll have to dig a bit to see what this specific issue was about. I'd note here that the timing of the LGM post happily coincides with the passing of the Farm Bill by the Senate yesterday. While I'll eventually post separately about what this iteration of the farm bill means for America's pork producers and pigs, for now, the NPPC (National Pork Producer's Council) seems pleased, describing the bill as "favorable" to the industry. You can find their press release here.

The $800 Holiday Ham

The Newport News (Virginia) Daily Press ran an excellent article (here) the other day about the arrival of Jamon Iberico in time for Christmas. After years of bureaucratic wrangling, Don Harris, proprietor of LaTienda, a Spanish food importer, managed to finally get USDA regulators to sign off on the importation of these legendary hams made from free-range, black-footed Iberico hogs that are fattened on acorns.

I first heard about these pigs (and hams) in Peter Kaminsky's book Pig Perfect (2005). At $87 per pound, I guess I won't be sampling any Jamon Iberico anytime soon, although Harris notes that they are hoping to eventually sell packaged slices of this ham for regular folks. According to the article. about 100 people have put down deposits on these hams, with 300 on the list for an even better version, the "Jamon Iberico de Bellota," which should arrive next year and sell for $1500 each.

To promote Spanish artisanal pork, Harris' company has set up a website, jamon.com, which is "dedicated to the fine art of the ham." The photo above is by Philippe Desmazes, AFP/Getty Images. The caption reads "A man checks Iberian hams hanging in a drying room at the Embutidos y Jamones Fermin farm in La Alberca near Salamanca. The Spanish Jamon Iberico (Iberian ham) is the name which is given exclusively to hams from the Iberian pig breed. The secret of the tase of Iberian ham is down to the pigs diet of acorns which they live on all year round."

DIY Bacon, British-Style

Yesterday the Guardian featured an article by Tim Hayward (pictured above) about his efforts to cure his own bacon at home. The essay, perfect for do-it-yourself-ers, begins by noting an increase in the amount of bacon being eaten by Brits, something attributed to the emergence of "premium and organic bacon." Noting that "my granny salted pork in a council house," Hayward figures "If she could do it... then so could I." After a week of carefully tending to two kilos of boned loin from an organic Tamworth, Hayward seemed delighted with the results. It does, however, seem like a bit of work...

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.

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).

A Self-Cannibalizing Ham

Speaking of cuts of meat, here is another in an ongoing series of images of self-cannibalizing pigs. Thanks to Angela in Alaska for this creepy "ham," which perhaps brings the pork and the pig too close together. Perhaps that's not a bad thing, however, since English is the language that has separated the meat from the animal, a process that dates back to the Norman invasion, interestingly enough. These days the distancing obviously goes way beyond the linguistic, as very few Americans ever see a live pig anymore.

A Sacrifice for Human Culinary Pleasures

Here's another image my friend Sean found for me, an advertisement for sausages from Auvergne. I'm not quite sure what to make of this, other than to say that it is a bit on the disturbing side in the way it presents the relation between cochon and saucisson. I guess that's the French for you... You can find a contemporary picture of said dry sausage from Auvergne 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."

The Pet-Food Scandal & Pork

At least some of the pet food contaminated with melamine that has been in the news lately was salvaged and sent to hog farms, according to articles in a number of papers. According to the article in the Guardian (here), some pigs here in California were fed the contaminated products. When asked if any of the pork from these hogs had entered the human food supply, Stephen Sundlof, the chief veterinarian of the FDA, responded "At this point, I don't have a definitive answer other than to say that the issue is being addressed." For a good overview of the entire issue, including what's known and what has been done thus far in the pork industry, see the Pork Checkoff's summary here at the pork.org website.

Foodies with Pig Tattoos

Back in 2005 an article appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle about local chef John Stewart, who has the logo of Mario Battali's father's Seattle cured meats store Salumi tattooed on his forearm. Stewart is the co-owner and co-chef of Zazu in Santa Rosa and Bovolo in Healdsburg, both in Sonoma County. Carol Ness' article "Going Whole Hog" is one of many that chart the recent revival of interest in cured meats. For my readers in the Bay Area, it includes a list of places to get interesting artisan salumi. The photo at right of Stewart's arm and some of his meats that accompanied the article was taken by Craig Lee.

Other chefs and pork afficionados have pig-related tattoos. In fact, I found the article about John Stewart through the blog A Full Belly, which had a piece about a guy named Aaron's tattoos of a pig and a daikon radish. Perhaps the wildest chef tattoo is inside the lip of chef Jill Baron of Chicago. It appeared in a New York Times Magazine essay on chef tattoos back in 2005 and can be seen here.

Bacon-of-the-Month Club

When I first heard of the Bacon-of-the-Month club I assumed it was a joke, but it's not. For $140 the folks at Grateful Palate will send a different artisanal bacon to your home each month for a year. You also get a membership card, a monthly comic strip, a pen, t-shirt, and, for the Year of the Pig, a pig nose to wear around. Seems like quite a good deal for the pork connoisseurs out there. The club is "curated" by "Captain Bacon," Dan Philips, who chooses each year's bacon selections after a big "fry-up" of about 100 different bacons. You can also purchase over 40 different bacons from "The 2007 Dan Philips Ultimate Platinum Premium Bacon Collection" which you can find here.

There's a great NPR piece (here) about bacon from All Things Considered back in January 2007 featuring John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance. Edge explains the difference between the usual store-bought, mass-produced bacon and the artisanal versions, which taste like "the sweet, sweet essence of pig." The on-line version also includes a list of "Six Weird Ways of Makin' Bacon," including bacon peanut brittle and bacon baklava.

The Boneless Pig Farmers Association of America

In what appears to be a case of real life imitating The Simpsons, the McDonald's corporation had its advertising agency create a fake organization, The Boneless Pig Farmers Association of America, as part of an effort to get the public to petition to save the McRib sandwich. As you may recall, in the episode "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can," Krusty Burger released a "Ribwich" sandwich, but only on a temporary basis:

Krusty: Listen, about the Ribwich. We won't be making them anymore. The animal we made them from is now extinct.
Homer: The pig?
Otto: The cow?
Krusty: You're way off. Think smaller...think more legs.

The farewell tour for the fictional (and presumably insect-derived) Ribwich was 'borrowed' by McDonald's for its viral marketing campaign to create buzz about the McRib. It was a surprise to me to learn that the McRib sandwich, with its pressed-on 'bones', really does seem to have a cult-like following. There's a pretty interesting article in the Columbia Missourian (here) speculating about what's in the McRib and addressing its mysterious appearance and disappearance, in case you want to know more. A blogger "deconstructs" the McRib here, with photos and ingredient lists. Finally, if you are really bored, the BPFAA has a myspace page, with suspiciously few friends. Perhaps the McRib isn't really all that popular, or, alternatively, its consumers aren't online all that much. I, of course, can't believe I just spent fifteen minutes of my life writing about the McRib...