Gillespie Kevin - Pure Pork Awesomeness Totally Cookable Recipes from Around the World

ALSO BY KEVIN GILLESPIE
WITH DAVID JOACHIM

Fire in My Belly

CONTENTS

M y Dad had a cassette tape of this Ray Stevens song in his little yellow pickup truck. When I was a kid, wed ride around in the truck doing errands and hed play the whole album, I Have Returned . Its all funny country songs with jokes that a kid can understand. Kiss a Pig is upbeat and easy to sing along with. Stevens sings about a pig that falls off the back of a truck, and he picks up the pig and they become friends. He takes the pig to a zoo and a ball game. The pig rides around in his car wearing a baseball cap. Its funny. But the line that really sticks with me is, He was my buddy, he was my friend, he was my breakfast every now and then. That pretty much sums up my feeling toward pigs.

I love them as animals and I love them as meat. If I had only one animal to eat forevermore, I would eat pigs. Like Bubba Gump and his shrimp, I have a million ways to cook pork because I love it so much. I could eat a pork chop one day, pulled pork another, and bacon the next, and theyd all taste completely different. You cant do that with chicken. Chicken tastes like chicken no matter what part of the animal you eat. I love beef and lamb, but they dont have the amazing versatility of pork. Pork can be the star of the show or a background flavor.

This book is not a tome on mastering pigs and pork. Its a celebration of all the delicious forms that this food can take. The whole world is in love with this animal. They admire it and cook pork more than any other meat except goat. Everyone can find something delicious here. Youll find recipes for pork the way its enjoyed in China, Germany, Mexico, Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, Thailand, Greece, Italy, Spain, France, Austria, Scotland, and the United States. From the United States, youll see preparations that originated in places like Kansas City, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Im hoping this book opens some doors for people and gets them pumped about pork again. For a while there, only super-lean flavorless pork was available to consumers. But the quality and flavor just keep going up and up.

During recipe testing, I got excited all over again. Theres just no end to what you can do with pork. Frying, roasting, braising, stir-frying, sausage-making its all here. And its not hard. I developed these recipes specifically for everyday home cooks. A few dishes are more challenging, but mostly were talking about things like A Really Good Cuban Sandwich (), I could eat pork every day of the week. Sometimes its fancy; sometimes its simple.

My hope is that this book becomes your go-to for cooking pork every which way. Its organized like the pig itself. The recipes start with cuts from the shoulder, then the loin of the pig, then the belly and hams (hind legs). Sausages, ground pork, and dishes using odds and ends like fatback and jowls come at the end.

Along the way, youll come across tips on hog breeds and pork cooking methods, but if thats not your thing, this book is just a fun ride and a good read. Every day can be a reason to get on board and celebrate the incredible pig.

N. 1

THIS
LITTLE
PIGGY

I always wanted a pet pig. Im allergic to cats. Fish are boring. My mom is afraid of reptiles. And I dont think its cool to cage birds. I wanted a pig. Im not sure where the desire came from. None of my friends had a pig. But ever since I was a kid, I thought, How cool would that be? I had this vision of me walking with the pig on a leash. Me and Hamlet or whatever his name would be. My parents, of course, were not on board with this idea. They grew up witnessing firsthand the animals that ended up as food on their tables. They did not want Hamlet to end up as pork chops for dinner.

To give me a better understanding, they told me, You should go play with some pigs. They took me to Noahs Ark, an animal rescue and wildlife preserve in Locust Grove, Georgia. Noahs Ark had horses, llamas, sheep, tigers, and bears, all of which had been neglected by their owners, kept illegally, or hurt in some way. You could pet the pigsat least in theory. This is the day I learned that pigs are much smarter than I thought. I was determined to catch one. But they just ran and ran. An hour and a half later, I was completely ragged and still hadnt laid a hand on a single pig. Im sure my parents thought it was hilarious, watching me chase piglets around this pen. That was a lesson. People have this impression that pigs are lumbering slobs, but nothing could be further from the truth. It turns out theyre really fast. And smart.

Needless to say, my desire for having a pet pig was put to bed that day. We got a dog instead.

PIG FARMING

My interest in pigs, however, persisted throughout my life. After I became a chef, I went to Gum Creek Farms to see how theyre raised. Gum Creek is in Roopville, Georgia, about an hour outside of Atlanta. The farmer, Tommy Searcy, raises Berkshire hogs. He also raises Hampshire hogs and a few Tamworth. Some cattle, too, just for themselves. Its a small mom-and-pop operation, but Gum Creek is focused on raising hogs the right way.

I was buying their pork for Woodfire Grill, and one day I thought, We need to go see these pigs. In my mind, I had two visions: 1) me as a kid chasing a 25-pound piglet around a pen, and 2) a commercial pig factory farm in the middle of nowhere in the flatlands of Iowa. The reality was completely different. At Gum Creek, the pigs were all in the woods. Tommy fenced off a great deal of wooded area, and the pigs were free to roam. They move the fences now and then so the pigs can graze different areas, but the pigs find their way. Tommy and I talked for hours about how intelligent this animal is. If you watch them, youll see pigs build these little spots where they sleep, their own little shelter. Of all the animals Ive visited on farmsIm talking about food animals like cattle, goats, and sheep that are destined to make their way to the dinner table the only animals that seem to have a little more going on upstairs are pigs. Tommys pigs were very curious and very gentle. They wanted to come up to you and almost chat because they were used to human contact. I even got to pick one up that day. In my mind, I thought a pig would feel sort of like one of those little stress ballssoft and squishy. But theyre all muscle. It was more like picking up a boulder. And their hairs are coarse and wiry. I dont feel guilty about eating them. But theres something special about this animal.

Id already developed quite a passion for eating pork, but visiting Gum Creek Farms gave me tremendous respect for pigs. It changed the way I viewed what I was cooking, serving, and eating. It drove me deeper into researching breeds and production methods.

Animal farming isnt all that different than anything else. When you scale up the project, you run the risk of the quality dropping precipitously. Crops are a little easier to scale up. But animals require your attendance day in and day out, 24/7. Just like human beings, animals also need space. If you try to pack too many in a confined area, they suffer. Thats what we see nowadays when people talk about feedlots.