Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Texans

There's a neat blog entry here about Chris Shepherd, Ryan Pera and Morgan Weber - Texas's Mangalitsa clique.

Reading it, I found out that Chef Shepherd recently cut his artery while butchering a pig at his restaurant - a very unfortunate thing.

I think Chef Shepherd and Christoph Wiesner are now using gloves like these for protection.

There's some great team spirit:
Pera, who also was asked to the competition but opted out to help his fellow chef, will be on Team Shepherd this weekend to "bring it home to Houston."
And the Texans are very inventive:

Shepherd is considering serving the following: Steen's sugared crispy pork belly; a plate of pig's head terrine, rillettes, blood sausage and andouille; whipped lardo; posole made with pork ribs; and pound cake made with pig fat and served with local strawberries. He's also making lavender-scented soap using pig fat as party favors for Cochon 555 guests.

It is really neat to think of their being a critical mass of Mangalitsa users in Texas. Two years ago, I never would have guessed that this would come to pass.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah you know us dumb Texans always catch on last. Although we still aren't furloughing our government employees and teachers like everyone else in the Union. Hmmmm...

Heath Putnam said...

I've never thought of Texans as dumb or catching on last.

I didn't think Mangalitsa pigs would catch on so quickly in Texas. A few reasons:

1) Texas is hot for Mangalitsas.

2) Texas doesn't raise a lot of pigs.

3) Food trends (e.g. pig fat) typically start outside of Texas and move to Texas.

Working in favor of Mangalitsa adoption in Texas:

1) Some Texans have money

2) Texans like to eat meat