I have ragged on the American concept of “Italian Salad Dressing” before. Just to summarize: There is no self-respecting Italian in the universe with whom I am acquainted who would even think of dousing his or her greens in “dressing” with the consistency of snot, containing massive doses of high fructose corn syrup along with a generous hopper-full of dehydrated peppers and garlic. No sir, not a one.
So why do we hide behind the concept of naming industrial crap food after other cultures? Is this a joke? I mean, when the waiter deposits the sacred vial of olive oil on the trattoria table, is Becky of Beaumont going to gag and think Italians are out to kill her with their natural products? C’mon fellas, where’s the Italian dressing?
But then I spotted a pork chop in a new butcher’s shop in San Francisco. I had to buy it; it looked different then any other pork chop I’d seen shrouded in saran wrap coffins at the super.
The pork had an odd name. It was vaguely Japanese. By the time I got home, I couldn’t remember it.
But I will remember the chop. I will never, in fact, forget the chop. It was incredible. It wasn’t the other white meat at all.
So, I did lots of research on the web. Finally, I came up with an answer to where the chop came from. The butcher called it “Kurobuta”. I discovered Kurobuta was Japanese for “black pig.”
But the funny thing is, the pig was Berkshire pig. Yes, from the shire of Berk in England.
So, why can’t we call it “Berkshire”? After all, the Japanese get their stock from England just like we do.
Let’s review. We have this tendency to blame our industrial crap food on other cultures who would turn up their noses at it (for good reason). But we also seem to do this on the other end of the spectrum, to good, tasty, humanely raised food as well.
We are middle dwellers perhaps. Embarrassed about the finer things that make us realize what good food could be if we let it, apologetic about the crap that we substitute for good food because it’s profitable and subsidized by the government (see Food That Rots; People Who Enjoy Life Too Much).
In any case, having tasted such wonderfulness, I learned a lot about pigs. First off, there is something about Black Pigs. It seems all the great pigs are black. The Cinta Senese are black. These are the pigs of my people, Tuscan pigs. Jamón ibérico comes from black pigs, and I’d give anything to be eating the black pig of Portugal, Pata Negra or Porco Preto right now.
These pigs have good distribution of intramuscular fat, which makes a chop juicy and tasty. I learned that pigs don’t really process the fat they eat; it just gets added to what’s there. So if you feed a pig acorns, which is not only a great treat for them but one of the foods that makes the fat taste particularly good, you can tell it when you eat the meat. If you’re in Spain, try a jamón ibérico de bellota and tell me it’s not different from a prosciutto di Parma.
So pigs are a product of what they eat and where they are raised. They are the Wine of the Animal Kingdom. It’s all in the terroir.
So that’s pretty much what makes good pork tasty and industrial crap pork cheap, dry and tasteless. There’s a wide gap between the two—not only in flavor, but in the way they’re raised. More about that later, but here’s a couple links to keep you going (if you like pigs and pork, that is).
Rhona McAdam of Iambic Cafe treats us to a wonderful tale of Culatello and the tale of the black pigs. You can compare and contrast the lives of pigs in Italy with a subsequent post about a visit to an industrial producer: The pig breeder and then lunch at La Nonna Bianca.
Stay tuned for more.