On a recent rainy Sunday, The historic barrel room at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley become a cracklin-, lard- and offal-stuffed temple of pork. Stationed around the high-ceilinged stone room that, more than 100 years ago,  served as the aging cellar for local wineries such as Charles Krug and Beringer (both just down the street), five anxious-looking chefs surrounded by a team of eager-to-please assistants and CIA students rushed to put the finishing touches on plates that artfully displayed weeks of thought, planning and, of course, lots of preparation. Each chef had managed to break down his own heritage-bred animal and, using every tendril and tendon, prepare a feast of tiny bites for a panel of professional judges and a mob of pork- and wine-lovers.

Participating in Cochon 555 is an honor: for the chefs, the winemakers and yes, even for the pigs. For those who don’t know, the “555” stands for five chefs, five pigs and five winemakers. In most major cities, the chefs are the super stars of the event (playing second banana to only the chocolate covered bacon), but in a diverse agricultural region like Napa Valley, winemakers and farmers elbow in for space at the trough.

While preserving heritage breeds and supporting the farmers who raise them is the ultimate goal of Cochon, along the way they manage to create feasts that celebrate the art of butchery, cooking and bring communities together around the proverbial table.

Or ironing board, as it were. Chris L’Hommedieu, the Chef at Michael Mina in San Francisco, and his team, wearing T-shirts graffitied with the names of pig parts, had the most creative presentation we have seen at any Cochon event to date. Ironing boards covered in red- and white-checkered oil cloths served as tables around which judges unpacked pulled pork sliders, bags of crispy pig ears, belly and offal rillettes (served with pretzel bread) and tiny chocolate cupcakes frosted with pork lard from individual “pig-nic” bags. Even the thinly sliced pickled beets and carrots were cut into the shape of a pig.

While L’Hommedieu was an early favorite, he was not to be the ultimate winner. Neither was Michael Tuohy of Dean & Deluca, in spite of the crowd pleasing chorizo mac and cheese,  heart meat hot dogs and a Moroccan spiced pork and chickpea stew. It was, however, not meat, but his pickled Romanesco that had the other chef’s returning to his table throughout the night.

To cleanse the palate between nibbles of cracklin’ and rendered lard, guests were offered “Manhattans” (really just whiskey with a couple of cherries and ice) courtesy of Hudson Baby Bourbon and, another chef favorite, Anchor Steam beer. While the pig parts were offally good, the Hama Hama oysters, piquing at that exact moment it seemed, provided another much-needed break.

While wine inevitably plays a supporting role at Cochon events, this year’s producers gave the piggies a run for their money. (This is Wine Country after all). Pax Mahle, Steve Mathiasson and Abe Schoener make for a trifecta of cutting edge winemakers. Between the Wind Gap, Mathiasson and Scholium Project labels, respectively, ten different varietals from as many regions across Northern California were represented. From a whole cluster Syrah to a skin-fermented Sauvignon Blanc, tasting the wines alone would have been a treat. The fact that they paired perfectly with the jars (jars!) of bacon stocked by the  Black Pig Meat Company was simply a bonus.

In the end the victory went to the host: Lars Kronmark of the CIA and his army of students will take their head terrine to the national competition this spring.

But just when you thought the pork had stopped flowing, the real feast began. Chef Jonathon Bodnar of Smoakville in Napa and Jonathon Fink of San Fran-based The Whole Beast rolled out their southern-inspired spread complete with potato salad and crispy cole slaw, which served mostly to feed the competing chefs, the winemakers and the lucky few who still weren’t stuffed. While not technically competing, The Whole Beast-Smoakville feast was widely agreed upon by all who remained to be the best of the night.

If you think about meat and eat meat and think about eating meat and think about the meat you eat, well, then you should probably check out “The Butcher’s Guide to Well-Raised Meat” by Joshua and Jessica Applestone of Fleisher’s Grass-Fed Meats (read their BB profile here) with Alexandra Zissu.  It’s neither cookbook nor reference book nor memoir nor treatise, but the sum of all these things, making it much more.

The Applestones set out to tell their story (the couple made the switch from being vegetarians to become “ethical carnivores”), offer a primer on butchery (their classes at the shop are sought after and well-regarded) and the preparation and cooking of all kinds of meat, and arm the average buyer with the information he or she needs while shopping.

“The Butcher’s Guide” is fairly bursting with information. Practical charts (we especially like the indispensable two page chart “The Best Ways to Cook Offal” — beef, lamb, pig and poultry cooking methods cross referenced against brains to tripe) which fairly screams to be photocopied and tacked up on the fridge), instruction (“How to Render Fat” or “How To Sandwich Wrap” so your meat won’t spoil), and other tid-bits (“Fun Things To Do with Pork Fat”) are everywhere.

We thought about the book last night while grilling and eating and thinking about buying, grilling and eating this here pork chop:

(Let us first say that the above image is in no way meant to represent the photography in the Applestones’ book, which is awesome and not taken with a cellphone.) While our pork did not come from Fleisher’s (alas Chez Boucher Ouest is a ways from NY, and it’s been quite some time since we’ve been able to frequent the shop), it did, of course, come from a quality butchershop in our area (in this case, the Fatted Calf), and as such exhibited the traits of “well-raised meat” the Applestones cite in the book.

First off, why did we go to a butcher to select individual chops with generous fat caps (pretty much murmuring, as we later read in the Applestones’ book, “Yeah, just throw in a couple of those chops, yeah the thick ones,” while pointing to our choices in the case) and not pick up the “Extreme Value Pack” from Safeway? Well, if you are so inclined you can read about the political and social ramifications of factory farmed livestock in the book (or on this here blog and elsewhere), but we won’t bullshit you: the real reason, of course, is taste.

And this one of the great things about “The Butcher’s Guide”: the authors don’t get bogged down in comparing breeds of heritage pig as one might compare vintages and varetials of red wine, they focus on the producer. And the key for them was finding ones they trust. In the book, among much else, they explain how they determined that.

Not everyone can get to Fleisher’s or a similarly high-quality shop, but everyone can read this book and use it to do the best they can to find the most ethically treated, well-raised and delicious meat available.

Space Cowboy is still smoking up a storm (this time it’s pork), and since he lost his “smokestack” and had to make a new one, we figured his loss would be your gain. Herewith, additional details on how he fixes up his backyard smoker.

In addition to the aforementioned backyard smoking technique, there are really only two steps to this conversion. And they involve two of our favorite things: knives and Coors Banquet in cans.

Step one:

Jam the knife (a cheap one, please) into the can.

Step two:

Repeat until you have flaps you can bend inside the can.

Place can over vent on top of grill smoker:

And that’s basically it. Make sure you have more cans of Coors on hand because it’ll come in handy when you burn your hand removing the hot can from the vent after it’s been sitting on top on the grill for an hour (or you can use gloves or a towel). In a pinch, of course,Miller High Life will also do for treating the burn.

The National Pork Board, the folks responsible for the slogan “Pork. The other white meat” are at it again. And they’ve really outdone themselves. It’s like they sat around a room going, “Let’s see if we can come up with something that’s actually worse.” And they have.

The new slogan is, wait for it, “Pork. Be inspired.”

Aside from the fact that the slogan is unoriginal, confusing, and, well, wholly uninspired, what the hell does it have to do with pork? It looks sort of like the “Intel Inside” logo. The new slogan will no doubt inspire many things: Laughter, derision, bewilderment, and regret come to mind.

According to The Pork Network, the slogan is the result of extensive market research. In fact, one might posit (and one surely is here) that a slogan that’s the result of going to committee is going to lack any sort of sense. It’s like, after 23 years of “the other white meat,” they looked around for a new slogan and decided maybe Apple was a good model. “Think different” worked for them, right? If nothing else, the NPB has made the “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner” people really look like geniuses.

“In my 15 years [at NPB] we have never had this type of segmentation study before,” said Ceci Snyder, National Pork Board’s vice president of domestic marketing, of the report that came to the conclusion that the target audience involves the 28 percent of U.S. households who eat 68 percent of all fresh pork consumed at home and 50 percent of fresh pork consumed away from home.

“They told us, cooking isn’t something I have to do, it’s something I like to do…but they want some fresh ideas,” she told The Pork Network. And those fresh ideas, goes the thinking, are embodied in “Be inspired.”

There’s the aspect of focusing on pork’s versatility in home cooking, and the “inspirational” aspect may focus on recipes. But it’s kind of a stretch in justifying the slogan.

The NPB has committed $25 million to a major media campaign around the slogan, including TV (network morning shows, and cable food channels) and print magazines such as “Everyday with Rachel Ray,” “Better Homes and Gardens” and “People.”

“Pork is our brand, and we want to be crystal clear what it stands for,” Snyder said. Then perhaps coming to the startling realization at that moment that “Be inspired” might not be crystal clear when it comes to pork, she added the explanation that pork is fresh, spontaneous, creative, tempting, delicious and inspired.

Then she probably wondered when anyone would ever again give her $25 million.

The magicians at McGill University north of the border have pioneered a new non-invasive scientific butchering technique. Through spectroscopy, analysis of reflected wavelengths of visible and invisible light, the quality of a cut of pork is determined without a slice.

According to Science Daily “the researchers discovered they could easily determine the colour, texture and exudation (water release) of the meat,” without destroying the sample. So, great, another way to replace experienced professionals and further factorize meat production.

As cool as all this sounds, we still just like to press our thumbs into the meat.

Bacon is fine … if you are a small child or you suffer from some sort of debilitating heart condition. A fuller, more robust experience can be had from pork belly, as we all know.

And Stéphane Reynaud’s recipe for “plain and simple rillons,” while neither plain nor simple to make (this involves rendering fresh lard and marinating salted chunks of pork belly in Quatre-épices for 24 hours), does produce the most plain and simple (and concentrated we hasten to add) expression of pork belly possible. Rillons are two-inch hunks of pork belly that have been slow cooked in fresh lard and caramelized with sugar.

If you’ve lost whatever regard you have for your health (which by now you must have), you will of course, “butter” your rillons with more lard as shown in Pork & Sons.

Now, we assume our readers are a sophisticated and enlightened lot (we also assume we have readers, but that is the least of our delusions) and that you all are well aware of the great many benefits of using fresh lard in cooking vs. using the bricks on supermarket shelves that would outlast Twinkies, etc… so we won’t bore you with all the details here.

Unless you live somewhere olde-timey and home-spun, or, ironically, in New York City, it might be hard to find proper fresh lard in a store. We ran into this problem recently, when, having relocated to Chez Boucher Ouest, we realized we were now roughly 3,500-miles too far from Chelsea Market to run over and pick up a tub (yeah, we make bad jokes; live with it).

The recipe for Pork Rillons in Stéphane Reynaud’s indispensable Pork & Sons, however, called for fresh lard. We briefly considered substituting duck fat, but then heard an old Frenchman’s voice in our heads, one of Stéphane’s cronies. And we can tell you, ladies and gentleman, that he was not saying things repeatable in a family publication such as this. So, out we trudged, in search of lard. To no avail, of course. None was available locally. What was available close-ish, was two pounds of pork fatback. And you know what you can do with that don’t you?

Herewith and henceforth, our recipe and advice for producing your own fresh lard:

The entire process is fairly simple, sort of like juicing a pig, except you can’t do it with one of those contraptions Jack LaLanne sells on late-night TV.

Step One: Find pork fat. This is tougher than it sounds. You’d figure with the mountains of bacon Americans are eating (and even making sculptures out of) that the stuff would be all over the place. Alas is is not. You will, of course, also want to make sure that the fat is coming from a reputable source, a supplier or butcher whom you trust, just as you would any meat you bought. We started with about two pounds of fatback with the intention of producing a bit more than two cups of lard (we did so on the advice of the butcher at the Fatted Calf in the Oxbow Public Market, and we have no reason to believe he’s a liar).

Step Two: Cube the fat. This part is lots of fun. The slightly pinkish slabs of fat make you feel sort of like you are swimming in Mr. Reynaud’s wonderful book. Chopping them is way more fun than it should be. Cut into strips, then divide the strips into cubes. There’s no reason to go nuts. You should end up with a mountain that looks most like are about to host a reading with wine and cheese, but resist the urge to sample as you’ll be sorry. The chopping process has the side effect of making everything — your hands, the knife, the camera with which you are trying to take pictures for your meat blog — feel like it has been slathered in pork fat (and indeed everything basically has). This is why you may notice that we took precautions and poured our beer in a large coffee mug.

Step Three (optional): Buy a fan. Your kitchen will soon be full of a cauldron of bubbling pork fat. Just saying.

Step Four: Start cooking the fat. Heat a large heavy pot over medium-low heat (yeah, decide yourself what that means: it’s a little hot but not so hot that the mess comes to a boil or turns brown), and pour in half a cup or so of water; immediately start to add the cubed fat, until you have at all in there and then give it a good stir with a wooden spoon. Go sit down. Finish beer.

Step Five: Wait. Keep getting up every ten minutes or so to stir the pot and refill your beer. After about two beers the mess should really be sizzling and popping.

Step Six (optional): Refill mug. That’s not really optional. We were just trying to see if you were paying attention, and attempting to make the recipe seem more complicated by adding steps. You’ll also want to stir the pot more frequently, now. The cracklings that are forming (yes, that is the bonus) should be floating to the top.

Step Seven: Cool it down. When the cracklings sink down, that sucker is done. They may not all sink, but you can definitely tell nothing is going on anymore. Turn off the flame and switch the hi-fi to some reggae station.

Step Eight: Strain. Yeah, we don’t mean you should make a great effort (no big ting, mon), but you should line your strainer or colander with some cheesecloth and strain the rendered liquid into a jar or glass bowl (which at this point should look sort of sludgy and yellow). What you have left will be cracklings. Eat, and throw the liquid away.

Step Nine: OK, no, we’re kidding. Put the container in the refrigerator over night and the next day you’ll have some creamy white lard that looks like the hair cream on the cover of that Black Keys’ record. Then you can start to finish your Pork Rillons (which hopefully you’ve not had marinating for 48 hours the way we did, because you, dear reader, are a planner.)

Ryan Farr couldn’t find his ribs. Basically an entire side of beef — grass-fed and dry-aged Highland  beef courtesy of Long Meadow Ranch — either hadn’t arrived or had gone missing. Farr, of 4505 Meats, was preparing to demonstrate long-rib butchering at Primal Napa (the double meaning of the name refers to the obvious as well as the primal cuts, which comprise every animal), a day-long celebration of open fire cooking, sustainable meat production, whole-animal utilization, and bacon. A ridiculous amount of bacon. (“There’s bacon EVERYWHERE” one happy attendee posted on Twitter.)

But at that particular moment, enjoying the bacon was far from the mind of Chef Dave Varley of Bourbon Steak in DC, one of the many talented chefs who traveled to Napa to help put on this carnivorous tour de force. Varley kept whispering to butcher Kari Underly of Range Inc in Chicago, who was cutting a different side of beef, hung precariously from a chain in a tree overlooking the vineyards of Chase Cellars in St. Helena, Calif., Primal’s home for the second year in a row. Underly, a third generation butcher, laughed at the prospect of what her butcher father would have to say about butchering an animal from the vantage from which she currently worked.

Chef Varley and Underly at work

If the Highland couldn’t be found, Varley, whose task it was to cook the beef Underly was butchering, said they’d stop at the ribs and share the side with Farr, meaning they’d miss some important sirloin cuts. Just as Underly got close to where she’d need to stop, word came that the Highland had turned up (and what a beauty, dark and well-marbled). Underly grinned. “Let’s have some fun with them,” she said, getting into the choice cuts and swinging them over onto the table where she separated the cuts.

Chef Varley surveyed the slabs of beef, some of which were so tender Underly could rip the cuts away with her bare hands, and wondered at how he might cook them. “This,” he said eying a roast, “we’ll put in a salt oven.” Salt oven?

Now would be a good time for us to explain that all of the cooking at Primal is done in a field over open fires. The chef got to work, tending a fire surrounded on all four sides by cinder blocks. He dropped an iron plate on top of it, sending flames shooting from the holes in the blocks. Next he began building another layer over the plate with more cinder blocks, which he then began to fill with salts and spices. Oh, that salt oven.

Avia Hawksworth of Long Meadow Ranch and Ryan Farr

The crowd watching Josh Applestone prepare a pig

Meanwhile, on the main stage, New York’s Joshua Applestone of Fleisher’s Grass-fed Meats sawed through a whole heritage-bred pig (a sirloin roast from which we had the pleasure of grilling the next day) while Jessica Applestone explained to the crowd what he was doing and why, saying that this (and not very long ago) once went on in every community in America and wasn’t an oddity at all. You might take, as a start in understanding the type of conscientious carnivores who take part in Primal the fact that when the Applestones (now partners at Fleisher’s) first met, Joshua was vegan and Jessica a vegetarian (“With,” she says, “a bacon exception.”)

Applestone and Harrison breaking down a lamb

Sure there was plenty of education spiked into the mix, but, of course there was also flash and showmanship, much of it courtesy of San Francisco’s Dave the Butcher. Dave brandished his two scimitar knives on stage, crossing them as Jessica Applestone pointed to each in turn, one from the 1890s and one from 2010. She urged the crowd to practice the art of meat cutting at home, and said, “You don’t need a knife from 1890 to do this; that’s just cool.”

In the end, the dino-sized ribs Farr sprinkled with chipotle-dust were enjoyed by all — former vegans and those who came mainly because they were enticed by the “Bacon Hall of Fame” alike.

Tia Harrison, Kari Underly in front, and Jessica Applestone with Dave the Butcher holding up his scimitar knives in back

And there were plenty who came with no preconceptions whatsoever, generally they were under the age of eight, though, many possibly seeing where their food comes form for the first time. They watched wide-eyed at the demonstrations, but happily for the future, never reacted with the squeamishness one might fear. One dad, toting a tow-headed boy, walked up to San Francisco’s Tia Harrison as she broke down a lamb on a table. “He just wanted to say, hi.” And the boy did, peering over over the edge of the table and waving. “Hi,” Harrison waved back with her knife.

Butchers on stage at Primal Napa

For videos of Primal Napa demonstrations and more information visit ProteinU on Facebook.

If you missed Tom Mylan’s pig roast at 3rd Ward in Bushwick luckily there is a condensed video version. A crew from WNYC were apparently among the countless throngs recording the event. You don’t get to taste any pork tacos this way, but you do get hear Tom say that, “If you’re the kind of person who can’t afford to go to the Hamptons for weekend, this is the Hamptons in the city.”

We could have just pointed out this wikihow story on how to make a BBQ hat and apron. We could easily have suggested a few materials you could make your hat and apron out of. We could have said use those pig sheets you’ve had since you were 7-years-old that you’ve only soiled once or twice. We could have pointed out that it’s pointless and ridiculous and wonderful all at the same time and makes us want get the knives out. We could have said wear your new outfit this weekend to the second annual 3rd Ward Pig Roast and Dance Party in Brooklyn on Sunday where Tom Mylan will personally butcher a 200-pound hog that will be turned into pork tacos and a base to soak up your PBR.

We could have said all these things, and not said anything about the fact that the word “hat” in the title of the article triggered a contextual ad for “hats for cancer patients.” (Do they really need special hats?) We could have done all of those things. And yet we didn’t. Because what fun would that have been?