Slow Foodies welcome heritage breed to Napa

As seven leading chefs served elaborate dishes to 120 wine-quaffing food enthusiasts at Silverado Country Club last Friday night, the guests of honor munched on apples, slurped water from a bowl and napped on a bed of wood shavings and cardboard.

Truly, this was not your average Wine Country extravaganza.

The honored guests were an 8-week-old pair of Red Wattle Pigs, a breed that nearly became extinct in the 20th century and still exists only in small numbers.

And the menus featured Red Wattle pork, literally from head (pig’s head brawn, served by chef Peter Halikas of n.v. Restaurant and Lounge) to toe (Silverado chef Peter Pahk’s four different presentations of pig’s feet).

Friday’s party was hosted by the Napa Valley chapter of the international Slow Food organization to welcome and celebrate the Red Wattles, considered a „heritage breed“ because they haven’t been genetically modified like most pigs raised for commercial meat production.

„This is the best-eating pig I’ve ever eaten — and you know, coming from Hawaii, we eat a lot of pig,“ said Pahk, who organized the event with Slow Food Napa Valley’s Chris Carpenter and New York-based food supplier Patrick Martins.

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Julia’s Kitchen chef Victor Scargle, who served lemongrass-cured Red Wattle pork belly with lentils, kale and plums, said the breed was new to him but that he plans to start using it at his Copia restaurant.

„I got in some commercial pork belly and I got these in at the same time and cooked them side by side, and it’s much better flavor, more fat, and more distinctive flavor,“ Scargle said.

„It has more levels of flavor going on than just the normal commercial grade that you might get.“

„This is the genesis“

Blissfully unaware that their relatives were on the menu, the little red pigs at last Friday’s party won’t wind up in a dish themselves: They were brought to Napa from their Kansas birthplace to become the Eve and Adam of the first Red Wattle Pig family west of Texas.

„This is the genesis of the Red Wattle pig in California,“ said Pahk, who has been buying Red Wattle meat from Martins’ Heritage Food USA for about two years.

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The two men had never met until last Friday, but over the phone they developed „a vision, seven, eight months ago, that we would bring the Red Wattle to California, particularly Silverado,“ Pahk said.

„I gave him the ending point and I said Patrick, you make up the rest.“

Martins decided to take the pigs on tour, complete with a documentary film crew. They visited cities and farms across the West on their way to Napa, where the pigs will make their home at Long Meadow Ranch in St. Helena.

Carpenter said their lives there will be vastly better than the existences of commercially raised pigs.

„This will be a very small herd,“ he said.

„The animals are going to be raised humanely; they’re going to be raised in an environment that is focused on sustainability, versus focused on profit,“ Carpenter continued.

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If the pigs breed as planned when they reach maturity in a few months, profit should come easily now that Napa chefs have discovered the Red Wattle Breed.

„I don’t have to order pig from Kansas any more, I can get it right from Long Meadow Ranch,“ said chef Pahk with a smile.

Source: napavalleyregister.com