FLAVORS
“In many ways, I feel one of our big
successes in the past two years is that
each tier of scrap now generates its own
product. For instance, if we are going to
make a really nice smoked and cooked
sausage, we’ll use all the scraps from the
shoulder and mix it up with the offal. We
can make bologna, which we sell in our
cafe, and mortadella, by emulsifying all the
leftover scraps and trimmings.”
bacon made from the pig’s belly), paper-
thin and crisp, an uber bacon.
Adding value
In food-savvy Charleston, S.C., Craig
Deihl, executive chef of Cypress, a post
he assumed eight years ago at the age of
24 just six months after the restaurant’s
opening, has spread his porcine net
beyond the confines of his kitchen. In
addition to the Tamworth hogs he sources
from Keegan-Filion Farm in Walterboro,
S.C., (which gets some of his better
kitchen scraps for pork treats), he is
helping to revive the rare heritage Guinea
hog, working with Gray Moore, owner of
Carolina Heritage Farm, Pamplico, S.C.
Kaye and his kitchen crew brine the hocks
and braise the feet, picking out the bones,
to make terrines. There are many uses
for the head. It can be taken apart, and
the jowls, ears, snout and chin cooked
separately. The crisped pieces of ear and
chin and succulent braised guanciale can
be used to accompany a conventionally
prepared loin. Sometimes the kitchen
bones out the head, brines and confits
it, and then rolls it into a torchon that is
served as face bacon (as opposed to
Diners at Rabbit Hill Inn enjoy Matthew
Secich’s smoked Waterford pork loin on
spinach purée with sautéed local organic
chanterelle mushrooms, kale, roasted
onions, apples and spinach.
“It’s a lard pig, fattier than a Tamworth or
Ossabaw,” says Deihl. “The whole carcass
only weighs about 80 pounds, so it is
easy for restaurants to handle. You don’t
need special equipment, because they are
so small and can be broken down with a
cleaver. They will eat rodent pests and can
forage for their own food, and at the end
of the day, they make some pretty tasty
BLTs, as well.”
salmi and saucisson sec, and local pork
producers benefit from increased demand.
Deihl points out that whole animals began
entering his kitchen only about three years
ago. “When we first started, it was kind of
trial and error while we figured out how to
use everything. This was not something we
were taught in school. We would smoke
the shoulders and do an upscale barbecue.
But then we moved on to figuring out how
to preserve what we had, and began to
do salumi and sausage. The more we use,
the more added value we get. Now there’s
nothing we don’t use.”
Lowry McKee Photography
He also initiated Artisan Meat Share in
Charleston, the equivalent of a pork CSA
(Community Supported Agriculture),
which he describes as a win-win situation.
Shareholders receive restaurant-made
charcuterie, such as coppa, chorizo, city
ham, Genoa salmi, mortadella, picante
Craig Deihl’s trio of Black Guinea hog is
braised shoulder, savoy cabbage and honey
crisp apples; rye-roasted belly, white grits,
celery root and smoked bacon jus; and
grilled loin, carrots, orange and cumin.
In addition to charcuterie and the standard
pork chop and loin, Deihl uses the head
for head cheese, porchetta di testa,
guanciale, jowl bacon and crispy pan-fried
head. There are trotter tots from the feet,
smoked hocks and pork butter—a creamy
rillette made from lard to which he adds
garlic, chilies, rosemary, fennel and salt,
then purées with butter and mascarpone.
