There’s a great point-counterpoint in this month’s Edible San Francisco, about the merits of buying California pork vs. Midwestern (in both cases family raised, heritage breed) pork. [via our friends at the Ethicurean]
We buy both California and Midwestern pork, because we believe in both arguments. Well, and because they’re all delicious.
The cornerstone of the Midwestern argument, I think, is that it makes more environmental sense to ship finished meat rather than feed from Iowa to California. And that’s hard to disagree with.
However, the Midwestern pork proponents take for granted that American grain farming is the sole provenance of the Midwest. In fact, California has a long history of farming myriad grains — without irrigation — dating back to pre-Colombian days.
Grain farming across the country declined when Butz era of agricultural subsidies made polycultural farms in the Midwest less economically viable that monocropping corn or soy, and grain farming shifted principally to Iowa and surrounding states. For us to have more California choices for pork that are environmentally sensible we just need more people to undertake the traditional growing of grain here. Actually, we need that for multiple reasons.
Similarly, it’s clear that pigs can thrive on diets other than corn and soy. We haven’t yet bought pork from Jude Becker (who is referenced in the article), but we have bought superlative pork from numerous farmers including Eliza MacLean (Crossabaw breed, barley-finished, North Carolina) and Barney Bahrenfuse (Berkshire breed, multiple-grain-finished, Iowa).
Hi Jay,
I heard of one guy in Virginia, but is there anyone else in the States that feeds their pigs on acorns like the Spaniards do for Jamon Iberico?
we had an opportunity to buy pork from a farmer in the Ozarks who finishes his pigs on acorns, but it was right while we were moving and we couldn’t handle the inventory.
I understand that Jude Becker finishes some of his pigs on acorns in Iowa, but those are sold under exclusive contract to Herb Eckhouse of La Quercia for their “acorn edition” program.
That’s all I know of.
I note that avocados have a very similar profile to acorns *and* we have plenty of oaks in California, right? I think avo-acorn finished pigs would be a natural here. I know of one farmer who was thinking about that, but he guards his pork closely and doesn’t sell to restaurants, sadly.