Chris Chamberlain - The Southern Foodies Guide to the Pig: A Culinary Tour of the Souths Best Restaurants and the Recipes That Made Them Famous

2014 by Chris Chamberlain and Bryan Curtis

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Nelson Books, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Nelson Books and Thomas Nelson are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

Photography by Mark Boughton Photography

Food and prop styling by Teresa Blackburn

Thanks to Porter Road Butcher in Nashville, Tennessee for providing the heritage pork for the Anatomical Survey chapter.

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ISBN-13: 978-1-4016-0503-2 (eBook)

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4016-0502-5

14 15 16 17 18 19 QG 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the pigs who gave their all and to the wonderful Southern cooks who respect their ultimate sacrifice by making them taste so darned delicious.

CONTENTS

W hen Ben Franklin lobbied his fellow founding fathers to consider the wild turkey as our young countrys national symbol, perhaps he should have considered the pig. Arguably the most democratic of all proteins, pork is beloved across the country, from a gourmet pork belly dish on the menu of the toniest Charleston bistro to a whole hog roasting in a hole dug in the sand on a beach in LA (Lower Alabama).

During Franklins time, the residents of the wild colonies of the South were the original locavores out of necessity. The agrarian economy depended on consuming the products of the earth that surrounded them, prepared using the methods and fuel sources that were readily available. In practical terms, pigs ran wild across the Lowcountry of South Carolina and in the forests of Arkansas, so they were a logical source of meat.

However, pigs are pretty tough on the hoof, which is why you dont see a lot of pork tartare on menus. Muscular and sturdy, the meat of the pig must be broken down to make it tender and palatable. Ingenious cooks in different areas of the South simultaneously made the fortunate discovery that one of the best ways to convert a whole hog into a delicious dish is to cook it for a long time at a low temperature. This is accomplished by maintaining a fire stoked by native wood, often constructed in some sort of pit or enclosure to protect the cooking process from the elements.

The delicious side effect of this method is that low and slow cooking over wood contributes a wonderful smoky character to the meat, and as the collagen that holds the pig together breaks down, it bastes the pork in a luscious bath of flavor. In Texas, the native mesquite wood creates a dense smoke that imparts strong, spicy aromas to pork, much to the delight of Hill Country diners. The hickory of the mid-South is sweeter and makes for a barbecue product that plays well with a sticky tomato sauce. In Mississippi, pecan trees are more common, so their version of smoked pork has a spicy, nutty character. Oak grows almost everywhere in the South, so the scraps from constructing a fence to hold a farmers hogs in the pen are a natural fuel source for cooking those same pigs when its time for them to make their ultimate contribution to the circle of life.

Indeed, the avid regional debates that arise over the best way to smoke a pig are actually about the native terroir of each area. When you compare a Hawaiian kalua-style pig cooked wrapped in banana leaves over acacia koa wood in an imu dug in the sand with a Tennessee hog smoked with hickory in a cinderblock pit constructed in a dusty parking lot behind the general store, youre actually tasting the history of the land.

Another method to help tenderize a hog is also a source of considerable controversy. To keep the meat from drying out over the course of a twenty-plus-hour cook time, pit masters discovered that basting the meat with some sort of acidic solution keeps it moist and serves as a tenderizing agent. Its also fortunate that tangy sauces make smoked pork even more delectable.

Arguments over regional sauce preferences rival battles about SEC football, with the Gamecocks fans of South Carolina preferring vinegar and mustard as the bases for their bastes. In Crimson Tide country, peppers and tomatoes are the primary acid sources of choice to flavor their pork and make the meat more succulent. Again, these preferences are the result of centuries of tradition, and despite their protestations, there is no one, correct answer. (But try to tell that to somebody from Lexington, North Carolina, and youre in for a long discussion with a stubborn debater. Youd better pack a lunch.)

Pork is also uniquely democratic in that it is a meat that is welcome at every meal. The old saw goes that when considering a breakfast of bacon and eggs, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. While you may occasionally see a breakfast steak on the menu, the pig is the star of the morning meal. A thick-sliced smoked bologna sammich purchased from a gas station deli in rural Tennessee is the perfect working-mans lunch, unless you consider the ultimate demonstration of the nose-to-tail versatility of the pig, a snoot sandwich made from a boiled hogs nose slapped between two slices of white bread. Feel free not to consider that for too long...

But many restaurants are proud of the fact that they serve everything but the squeal when it comes to pigs. This is a way to honor the animal and a historical nod to the necessity of utilizing every bit of a hog that farmers spent time, labor, and money to raise for this purpose. Whole hog cookery introduced soul food staples like chitlins and souse that reward brave eaters with bold flavors and textures. In addition to the primal cuts like the loin and hams, pork meat lends itself well to grinding so that the other parts of the pig that arent as recognizable as spare ribs or pork chops can still contribute to the meal in the form of a wonderful world of exotic sausages. Even the fat of a hog can be used to make lard that is a key ingredient in some darned fine buttermilk biscuits.

The Southern Foodies Guide to the Pig will take you on several different types of journeys. An anatomic survey of the pig will introduce readers to the individual parts of this versatile animal, and youll learn procedures and recipes to prepare all sorts of wonderful dishes. A geographic tour of the Southern states will showcase restaurants in the region that have particular talents when it comes to pork. The chefs and pit masters have shared some of their most sacred secrets, the actual recipes for the best pork, barbecue, and bacon dishes that emerge from their kitchens. The contributing chefs include world-championship competition barbecue pit masters; James Beard Foundation Awardnominated chefs; people you might have seen on television shows like Top Chef, Chopped, and Iron Chef America; and cooks who work in family-owned restaurants that you might drive right by if you didnt know that they make some of the most delicious food on the planet. What they all have in common is a willingness to share their talents and recipes with you.