Posted by Erin Zimmer, May 21, 2008 at 6:45 PM
"You eat barbecue; you don’t grill on the barbecue," one Memphis in May competition judge and friend recently enlightened me. "It's a food, not an appliance."
You would have been pierced with a grill fork last weekend if you misused the word at Memphis in May, the world's largest pork roast competition. Vying for over $90,000 in prizes and bragging rights, 261 teams gathered, including presence from Estonia, Norway and Belgium. Some categories included: best whole hog, best shoulder and best ribs, with entirely separate titles for best sauces. Team names are almost as important as the meat itself. Some of our favorites include: Sweet Swine o’ Mine, Rib Ticklers, and Rhoda Brown’s Smokie Fatties. Typically, most phrases involving "fatties" are good.
Saturday, the party vibe stiffened up when judges sampled the various forms of hog. Check here for full results, and a regularly-updated blog from The Commercial Appeal, the local Memphis daily. Washington Post Food editor Joe Yonan was also on site, sticking his camera into the meat-smoking pits and chatting with grillmasters throughout the weekend. Yonan admitted to me, his moleskin still smelled of beautiful hickory earlier this week when he revisited his notes for the article.
Posted by Cathy, May 16, 2008 at 4:00 PM
I like parts. Especially pig parts. So when Jennifer of Flying Pigs Farm offered me some pig tails, I didn't hesitate. For cooking advice, I looked to Fergus Henderson's Nose to Tail Eating: he gives them a slow braise, breads them and browns them in butter. (For those who don't have the book, an adaptation of the recipe is available on Gourmet's web site—although if you have access to pig tails, and a desire to eat them, you're the kind of Serious Eater who needs this book.)
These are not cute little cartoon-curly tails; good, because Fergus is quite specific about asking one's butcher for long tails.
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Posted by Robyn Lee, March 1, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Today, March 1, is National Pig Day! Celebrate this joyous occasion by giving thanks to your favorite pig. Or delicious pig-based product.
Last year, we celebrated National Pig Day with our Pig Heaven Honor Roll, a list of our picks for top pork purveyors, pork dishes, pork-knowledgeable chefs, and pork-related media in the country. We also made it a point to saturate the week of last year's National Pig Day with more pig-related posts than usual.
After the jump are ten of our favorite bacon and pork-filled posts from the last year.
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Tetley the piglet is no bigger than a tea cup. He's a Pennywell miniature pig, bred from a range of old English breeds, growing no bigger than the size of a cocker spaniel. Watch a video about these tiny pigs.
Posted by Alaina Browne, September 12, 2007 at 7:00 PM
If I were to ever get a tattoo, I'm pretty sure it would be a variation of the cuts of pork diagram like DaddyMC's featured above. More fabulous pork ink: Aaron and Matt.
