National Culinary Review

makes a wonderful stew with cumin and other spices, chili peppers, garlic and collard greens,” Lamas says. It’s served with rice, beans and salsa.

Lamas also does a taco of the day, often made from head parts braised with herbs and spices, and a gaucho plate that includes various pâtés or sausages. He sometimes freezes the sausages for later use.

Customers who haven’t previously tried such dishes often are hesitant at first, Lamas says, but in general, he finds they are becoming more adventurous as they gain more interest in the origins of their food.

ADVENTURE SEEKERS

Finding diners to be “pretty adventurous here in San Francisco,” chef David Bazirgan of Fifth Floor gives pig’s head an Italian flair in his suckling pig’s head cappellaci with Douglas fir consommé, lobster mushrooms and Parmigiano-Reggiano on an occasional tasting menu, usually the third of seven courses.

It’s a three-day process to prepare the head, which Bazirgan first soaks in cold water overnight, then brines the next night, and finally braises with white wine and aromatics. He adds Parmesan and herbs to the broth, which he clarifies. He then infuses it with small branches of Douglas fir pine, garnishes it with mushrooms and pours the broth tableside over the hat-shaped, pork-stuffed pasta.

Chef Jorel Pierce at Euclid Hall Bar & Kitchen in Denver substitutes julienned pig’s ears for noodles in his pad thai pig’s ears dish. “Fried pig’s ears have a similar texture to twice-cooked rice noodles,” he says.

TOP LEFT: Jorel Pierce substitutes julienned pig’s ears for noodles in his pad thai pig’s ears dish, a staple on the menu at Euclid Hall Bar & Kitchen.

TOP RIGHT: Pot au feu en gelee with horseradish mousseline is one way that Justin Aprahamian uses head cheese at Sanford restaurant.

The dish contains the usual ingredients of tamarind paste, Thai chilies, garlic, white wine vinegar, dried shrimp, sugar, vegetable stock, housemade hot sauce, scallion, ground peanuts, egg, lime juice and fish sauce. He tosses the mixture and garnishes it with mung bean sprouts, mint and cilantro. “Guests really like the pad thai dish, and it has become a staple on the menu,” Pierce notes.

Many restaurants have occasionally done special whole roast suckling pig dinners, usually roasting the whole animal on a spit or in a smoker, then serving it sliced with barbecue sauce. Today, some chefs, such as Tim McKee at Parasole’s Salut Bar Americain in St. Paul, Minn., are taking the whole pig apart to better showcase all of the animal.

At its recent Tour De Cochon dinner, Salut sous chef Stephen Jones raised and provided a heritage breed Mangalitsa pig, known for its exceptional flavor and fat content. Instead of leaving the pig whole, the chefs made some two dozen individual dishes from it.

Dishes incorporating some of the lesser-used parts included a crispy pig’s ear salad à la lyonnaise with endives, lardon and a poached egg; pig’s foot torchon with walnut oil, caramelized onion and mâche; and grattons, or skin, with fennel pollen. A housemade sausage with mostly head and shoulder meat was braised with apple brandy, poached apple and truffle.

“This local farm-to-table movement originally focused more on vegetables, notes Parasole spokesman Kip Clayton. “Now it incorporates more meats. It’s exciting for us to see this happening, and is a great extension of that trend.”