table talk / By Joseph Byrd

Pork II: A New Hope

The true pig farmer returns, bringing real chops to the table

(Oct. 30, 2008)  Last week’s “Table Talk” described how a national aversion to saturated fats was exploited by the National Pork Board in two ways: First, in creating “Pork — the Other White Meat” as slogan and campaign. Second, by breeding and raising pigs in confinement, and with low-fat, antibiotic-laced diets. The column detailed the literally odious methods used by commodity hog producers, which have lately been countered, in part, by increased consumer awareness.

Unsurprisingly, marketers have become savvy of this awareness, and have begun to use “green”labelingin their PR. But companies that use phrases like “natural” and “organic” seldom mean “pastured” or “free-range.” Corporations love to imply, and their interpretation of green-friendly terminology is often different than what a consumer would infer. For instance, Petaluma Farms’ Rosie and Rocky chickens are labeled “free-range” but they never leave the building in which they are raised. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, calls such disingenuous marketing “supermarket pastoral.”

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Grocery chains do not buy from family farms. Successful marketing of commodity pork has forced most such farms out of business. There are still family-run hog farms, but rising feed prices mean there are not as many. A handful survive by selling direct to upscale restaurants. But that wouldn’t help me find my ideal pork chop. I began my quest searching for online farms and farmer cooperatives that used traditional methods: 1) free-range, or pastured animals, 2) piglets not weaned until at least six weeks and 3) pigs fed a hormone/antibiotic-free diet that was not low-fat.

My first two online encounters with a pork chop were, like most blind dates, a flop. They were 1 1/2-inch thick Berkshire rib chops from New York and Chicago distributors who coordinate small farms all around the country. The price ranged from $14 to $25 per pound, including shipping. Alas, while flavorful, the chops were tough and dry — evident victims of the ubiquitous obsession for lean pork.

I discovered that it’s not easy to restore the fat content of hogs to earlier standards. “We strive for 48-51 percent lean,” rancher Paul Willis told me. “The commodity hogs are 52-55 percent lean. That may seem like a small difference, but it is major to flavor. And we have difficulty doing it — through genetic selection, American pigs have been re-engineered, and it’s not easy to put the genie back in the bottle.”

Willis raises pigs for Niman Ranch, a company based in Oakland/Alameda, which has been a rare positive force over the past four decades, seeking out small farms and creating a brand of natural, pastured meat.

Willis’ Iowa farm was featured in a piece by food-blogger Alanna Kellogg, complete with photographs of “happy pigs,” some curiously nosing visitors, others blissfully oblivious in mud baths. There were open fields, and hundreds of pigs. Remember the stench of the Kentucky facility? Kellogg wrote, “Much to everyone’s surprise, the odor was earthy, almost sweet, completely pleasant.”

Do happy pigs taste better? “Pastured hogs get more daylight, which means a lot of natural Vitamin D,” Paul Willis told me. “They get exercise, which produces marbled meat, and they get natural nutrients from the soil and air.”

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