One of my Facebook friends posted some pictures over the weekend of her dinner at a “tasting menu” at a place called the French Laundry. (Michelin rated, 3 stars, in the Napa Valley.) I thought of this thread when she posted the picture of the suckling pig course, a silver-dollar sized sample with garnishes.
I’ve definitely heard of people hearing about suckling pig and saying, “Wait. Isn’t that a PIGLET? As in, a BABY?”
The French Laundry is pretty famous. Not that I know first hand.
They mention it alot on the Food Network.
Isn’t suckling pig, just that?
A young pig?(Like a month old, or something?)
Ok this sent me down a rabbit hole. The restaurant (Big Apple Inn) has an amazing history.
I have been there.
Take from a person who was persuaded and promised it wouldn’t kill me. I relented.
First…the place is nasty. Smells bad, looks bad. Sticky sidewalk. We won’t mention the floors. Flies everywhere.
It stank of old grease halfway down the block.
Second. Ordered had to wait for 30min for a barely fried, pig hairy piece of pig ear. Smaller than cheap, stale white bread it was on. Thankfully they put mayo on mine. I couldn’t eat it. Not that I was gonna.
Third. Over $30 for sandwiches and warm ice tea. For 3. I give them the ice problem. Seems the ice maker was broken. Gah!
Don’t do it. If you just have to try pig ear sandwiches I’m sure you can do it easily at home. Finding the ears might be a search. It could be done.
To each his own, tho’.
Are you sure it was the same place? I ask because after watching the video I note that the pig ears are pressure cooked, not fried, and a quick check of their menu shows that they are only $2.20 each these days (and $1.05 in 2016). $30 seems off for 3 sandwiches?
The Yelp reviews are good and they have a good health score, FWIW.
I’m pretty sure it was. My eldest daughter was in college there. The ears have to be pressure cooked, to break it down or it would be like dog chew toys. They are then put on bread or buns and fried. Or not. You’re choice.
It was $30 dollars or close. I gave them a $20 and a $10. They never brought change back. So tip taken maybe?
Maybe they’ve cleaned the joint up. It needed it. (I’ve been it a few greasy spoons, I don’t think the health department is all we think it is about restaurants, unless folks complain or get ill)
At any rate, pig ear ain’t good eatin’ unless your name is Rover.
IMO
I’m fully prepared to believe you.
Kind of funny because the proprietor (fourth-generation family) complained that a box of pig ears went from $13 to $59 once they started to become popular as dog treats.
The video is worth watching IMO; good look at historic Jackson and Farish Street, with connections to Sonny Boy Williamson, Medgar Evers, and others.
We have a local store called Cost-U-Less that had them recently. I grabbed a bag, not because I was aware of any special goodness, but because I will experiment with using almost anything.
“Melty heaven” is about right. I threw a stew together in the crockpot with beans, corn, tomatoes, shredded turkey, onions, scallions, and I forget what all else, with a couple of the knuckles.
I was not expecting how the pig bits totally disintegrated - I thought I’d be fishing them out whole at the end, but nothing remained intact except the bones. The stew liquid was AWESOME.
If I had known just how good the stew was going to turn out, I’d have written down how I made it so that I could replicate it.
They served a pig on the beach at Jamaica’s Half Moon Beach & Tennis Club. It was pretty cool, until a light illuminated the scene for a few seconds and you could see dozens of gnats/mosquitos all over the pig.
Fyi, that was understood before “low cholesterol” became a marketing item. My father taught physiology, and used to bitch about false and misleading advertising when that first started to be a thing.
I had suckling pig once. A Spanish friend prepared it for his 40th birthday party. Yes, it was a baby pig. It was delicious.
Pork cooked in beans. Any kind, beans or the pork, is just how we roll.
Add cornbread and you have dinner. (For a couple of days)
Glad that mystery stew turned out so well, but even when you don’t cook the knuckle until it disintegrates, the skin is an amazing unforgettable mouthful. I haven’t had it in decades, and I can remember it perfectly. It brings me back home.
I have to find unsmoked knuckle somewhere now.
In Indiana and Missouri, they eat brains and eggs as well as fried brain sandwiches (Zimmern had them when he visited St Louis)