Farm to table.

We've only been out the car for a minute, and already i'm starting to realize that my Blue Bottle hoodie and Nike's may have been a bad idea. It's cold--bitterly cold. And raining. Oh, and bloody. We're in Sonoma county, somewhere. I'm not sure exactly where because the map on my phone stopped updating itself 30 minutes earlier. It's early, and i'm tired, and excited, and nervous, and probably far more lit up on coffee than a guy attending a pig slaughter should be.

A couple of weeks earlier Chef told me we were doing a pig dinner. Brandon Jew, one of my favorite chefs in the city would be coming by to help out. Start thinking about what you want to cook he said. This whole idea was very cool to me...I had always wanted to go to one of Oliveto's whole animal meals, but had never had the chance. So here we were, about to do it our way--what could be better? What I didn't expect was Chef announcing a couple of days later that we would actually be attending the slaughter of these animals. Anyone could attend--it just meant waking up early.

As a chef, my whole career has been spent opening cryovac bags of meat, patting them dry with a towel, and butchering. I was aware of where the meat came from, but it was convenient that I didn't have to see it. One time I sawed a pigs skull in half to make headcheese. And for some reason, catching and gutting a fish never seemed particularly upsetting to me. But the pig. Oh, the pig. In the days leading up to the slaughter, I heard from so many people about how smart pigs were...that they would scream...that my level of hell would consist of me and my fellow cooks being made in bacon. However, like Chef said, it seemed like something that we had to do. It was our responsibility as cooks.

Which brought me to the wet, muddy, bloody mess that I was standing in. A short, yet wrong turn filled trip had led us here. Jessie from Marin Roots had been raising pigs and goats, but wanted to get out of the livestock game. We were to take two pigs back with us, but coming up the hill I saw a boar, very dead, yet convulsing and bleeding everywhere. This was not the white tiled abbotoir that I thought it was going to be. We were outside, in the mud and rain, a hunting rifle and scalding tank at the ready. The man doing the work that day was named John; blue collar all the way, with strong shoulders and a gruff voice. He was one cool ass motherfucker.

Watching the precision that he worked with was astonishing. Sadly, he told us that he was the only one doing this kind of work in the area--no one wanted to learn the craft and carry on these traditions. His tools were simple; two de-boning knives, a steel, two guns, a torch for burning hair off, and a hook for pulling the bodies where he needed them. In minutes the boar was skinned, gutted, and split in two.

Next up were our pigs. They were fed, and snorting and sqealing. There were goats in the pen with them looking on warily, as was their mother, who was in the pen next to them. As they were being led away, they screamed and fought, but soon they relaxed and started eating grass. John walked over and would casually say 'here piggy' and then a muffled pop. That was it. No ceremony, no final words. This was business. Collecting pig blood for blood sausage proved to be fairly difficult, what with the animal convulsing and all. Soon John got to work again, working with the same efficiency, but this time scalding, burning, and shaving the hair off instead of complete skinning. (apparently the boars skin is more like armor than hair)

And that was it. We headed back cold and wet, but excited for Monday, when we would be cooking the animals. I came back from my weekend on Sunday. Brandon had already been working stock, headcheese, sausage, and the porchetta's. On Monday, Chef made a porchetta filling and tied them up. They spun away on the rotisserie for hours. Brandon set the headcheese, finished his sauces, and blanched sausage. It was inspiring thing to see, and hard to even picture the animals as they had once been.

The dinner was a success. Nopa was slammed on a Monday night. Pork liver, headcheese, the porchetta, Amy's bacon brittle...it was one of the most interesting nights to be in that kitchen. Jessie came out and ate dinner, as did most of the kitchen crew. It was gratifying, to have seen the process from beginning to end. And I got to have a delicious porchetta sandwich to boot.