For those of us who really dig on the swine, the two most coveted and rare kinds of pork are from the twin Holy Grails of whey-fed pigs (raised by cheesemakers) and acorn-fed pigs (source of the famed jamon Ibérico de bellota) .
This weekend we will be bring you both — with the same pig.
Our friends the Maguires in Santa Margarita keep a few pigs every year to which they feed the whey from their pastured-sheep’s-cheese farmstead. This year they had a group of floppy-eared Durocs that we visited on our way up to Magnolia for the Simul-Dinner (I didn’t bring a camera, sadly).
As the end of the year approached and the pigs would be brought to harvest, the Maguires fed them the acorns from the many oaks on their farm.
What we have here is whey-fed, acorn-finished pork.
The hams from this pig immediately went to into cure, and we probably won’t see those for a year or two — when we’ll have our own California kind of jamon Ibérico (jamon Californico?). We also put a lot of other parts of the pig into cure as well.
But if you want to taste this rich, nutty pork now, we’re serving fresh cuts this weekend. We don’t have a lot so it will probably be gone by Monday if not sooner.
Here’s the dishes from this pig we’re serving for the weekend:
* ham terrine (from the part of the ham that didn’t go into cure)
* pulled pork sliders
* carnitas tacos
* pork chop dinner (I had this as a sample, it was the most complex pork chop I’ve ever tasted)
* bacon milkshake
The porkness starts Friday at 5:30pm.
Jay, as a huge Spanophile can I express how totally “emocionada” I am that you’re doing this? I can’t wait. The best meal of my entire recent trip through Europe was a pork chop I had on the overnight train to Madrid. Definitely trying the Linkery version this weekend.
It amazing to See you are the only guys in San Diego that are trully representing sustainable Californian product. I used to the sous at Roseville and I can tell you that having a bellota no more than 3 feet from your working station was overwhealming. I would love to see Jamon California go threw. Let’s us educate San Diego!
Thanks Aldo…love the pictures of Oaxaca on your blog, too, we were just there a few months back and I could taste the mole again. In DF we had jamon jabugo in a couple places and we’re definitely going to make it happen here!