Labor Day may be over and while you may have put away the BBQ pit, it certainly does not mean that the season is over. In fact, the capstone of the season took place in Brooklyn last weekend. The event was called Pig Island and while it may not have technically been on an island, taking the ferry over sure made it feel like it.
More than 20 chefs gathered in the area next to Ikea in Red Hook, Brooklyn to compete for the most delicious porcine dishes. It was the type of competition where all the attendees won. In addition to having an array of delicious pork dishes, the booze was also flowing. It complemented the beautiful weather as guests enjoyed the waterfront with alcohol options such as Sixpoint Brewery (Brooklyn), Indian Ladder Farms Cidery, Eden Cider (Vermont), Austin Eastciders (Texas), King’s Highway Cider (New York), Knob Creek Bourbon, Laphroaig Scotch, Our/NY Vodka, ESP Gin, NY Distilling, Mezcal De Leyenda, Old York Farm Distillery, and Breuckelen Distilling. Needless to say, the buzz was on.
To fill your belly, you had tons of options to enjoy such as pure Ibérico pigs, which are fed a special diet of vegetables, acorns, and chestnuts to give their meat a rich, nutty flavor from Rodrigo Duarte. There was also the The Foxy Burger which are sliders with ground beef, ground pork, and ground bacon, topped with kimchi, bacon aioli, and sliced bacon from Jason Fox at Hudson and Charles and Vietnamese Larb which is a Southeast Asian salad that’s made with pork shoulder and veggies, then seasoned with cilantro, mint, and a ton of fish sauce; that was brought to you by Roxanne Spruance from The Butcher, in New York. While most of the represented establishments were local-ish, Tank Jackson from Holy City Hogs came all the way from Charleston, SC (not just to avoid the Hurricane) to cook us Ossabaw Island Pig, which he calls “one of the oldest and tastiest pigs in the world.” It was a whole hog barbecue, 24-month-old ham cured by Dakota hams out of Somerset, Kentucky, ghost pepper cheese infused sausages, and South Carolina collard greens cooked down in Ossabaw Island lard. Needless to say, it was a pretty special day.
If you didn’t make it out, circle your 2020 calendars as this is an annual event and one not to be missed!