The phrase “farm to table” is used a lot in foodie circles. In the second half of this Sky Full of Bacon two-part podcast, I’ll complete the picture of what that really means with visits to restaurant kitchens… and to a slaughterhouse.

Sky Full of Bacon 06: There Will Be Pork (pt. 2) from Michael Gebert on Vimeo.

Mike Sula of the Chicago Reader has been writing about the rare mulefoot pig for the last year and a half (see here). Now the Reader has enlisted award-winning chef Paul Kahan, of Chicago’s Blackbird, to plan an elaborate six-course dinner showcasing the meat of these pigs and the sustainable, humane way in which they’re raised, as a benefit for Slow Food.

In Part 2, Mike Sula and I watch as Kahan and chefs Jason Hammel (Lula Cafe), Justin Large (Avec), Mike Sheerin (Blackbird) and Tim Dahl (Blackbird) prepare for the big night and talk about why supporting and promoting good pork matters to them. And we go to the rural slaughterhouse with Jason Hammel to gain a better understanding of what really lies behind the meat we eat. (Warning: although we were not allowed to film the kill itself, the video does contain frank footage of everything else that goes on in a slaughterhouse.) (19:56)

Mike Sula’s account of the same events
Recipes from the dinner
The Chicago Reader’s complete “Whole Hog Project” archive
LTHforum posts on the dinner, and Chuck Sudo’s account at Chicagoist
Monica Eng of the Chi-Trib wrote a really great piece about her experiences at various slaughterhouses here

P.S. Originally I felt like this one needed some kind of summing-up at the end expressing how I felt after watching my dinner live and die. In the end, as I usually do, I preferred to let the subjects and the images speak, not listen to me yak. But here, if anyone’s curious, is what I wrote and recorded but left on the cutting room floor:

It was an amazing meal. Was it worth the price?

We all joked, before we went to Eickman’s, that we’d come out vegetarian converts.

But in the end, I found myself affected less by the moment of these animals’ deaths… than by the day I spent seeing their lives at Valerie’s farm, free and happy and living naturally.

And I was impressed by the thoughtfulness, even reverence with which all of the chefs approached the meat we brought them.

It’s easy to say meat is bad. It’s just as easy to buy industrial meat without thinking about where it comes from. The hard thing is raising, cooking and eating meat in a way that’s good for the land, pigs and people. That’s what I feel like I’ve seen on this journey… from farm to table.

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About Sky Full of Bacon
Sky Full of Bacon #5: There Will Be Pork (pt. 1)
Sky Full of Bacon #4: A Head’s Tale
Sky Full of Bacon #3: The Last Brisket Show
Sky Full of Bacon #2: Duck School
Sky Full of Bacon #1: How Local Can You Go?

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