October 25, 2011

• Rustik Rooster Reinvents Pork

  

  With 2000 stores, Applebee’s is by far the Midwest’s largest casual dining chain. They have at least five restaurants in each of Omaha, Wichita and Tulsa plus at least ten in the metro areas of those towns. They have only two in Des Moines and only four in our entire metro. How does Des Moines’ restaurant scene escape the usual conformity of Middle America?

  Those of us who like to eat well owe a lot to a surprising number of visionary locals – the gang of friends known as Full Court Press, Dom Iannarelli & Bruce Gerleman, Harry & Pam Bookey, Steve Logsdon and Kirk Blunck, Scot Carlson, Mike & Carter Hutchison, and George Formaro & Paul Rottenberg. Collectively those folks built twenty five unique new restaurants here in the last two decades while preserving historic buildings that might otherwise have been torn down to build an Applebee’s franchise. In addition, Des Moines was blessed by the visions of immigrant chefs who settled here from the American South, Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. The latest visionary who is improving our dining habits is not a restaurant owner though. He’s a pig farmer.

  

  Carl Blake is a refugee from the silicon rat race. A former computer engineer, he left Apple Inc to get his hands dirty. He wanted to bring back pork like he recalled from his youth. “I remembered brats that squirted when you bit into them and pork chops that were juicy. I couldn’t find pork that did that any more,” he recalled. So Carl investigated the bloodlines of pig history and discovered a cross breed that was the rage of Stuttgart 100 years ago. Those Swabian Hall pigs were half Chinese Meishan, the world’s fattiest pig, and half Russian Wild Boar (RWB). Carl heard that Iowa State University had given up its research on the only Meishan herd in America, so he bought their entire stock. RWB’s were harder to find and far more difficult to maintain. “I had to build two man traps in each RWB pen. Those pigs are so mean they will tackle you, hold you down and beat you half to death,” he explained.

  Bottom line though is that by crossing a Russian with a Chinese you get a German, but only in Iowa. The Swabian Hall lineage became extinct in Germany.

  

  Carl fought back. The resulting Iowa Swabian Hall pigs he raises at his Rustik Rooster Farms have become a taste sensation. “You can take the back fat off our pigs and turn it into whipped cream,” Carl bragged. One won last year’s Cochon 555 competition in San Francisco where chefs preferred them to Mangalitsas, which are the current darlings of the charcuterie world. Top charcuterie makers Perbacco of San Francisco and La Quercia of Iowa now buy Iowa Swabian Hall pigs. Other chefs loved their shoulders and loins, which taste like a cross between pork and goose. Chicago restaurant legend Charlie Trotter now buys Rustik Rooster’s suckling pigs. Two time Cochon 555 winner Matt Steigerwald uses whole Iowa Swabian Halls at his Lincoln Café in Mount Vernon. Stephanie Izard, this year’s winner on Food Channel’s “Top Chef,” prefers full grown whole hogs at her Girl and Her Goat restaurant in Chicago. She featured one at a James Beard House fundraiser this year.

  Earlier this month, Blake brought a whole Iowa Swabian Hall hog to Carlisle’s Butcher Crick Farm for their second annual restaurant appreciation event.

  

  Chefs Hal Jasa (Zingaro) and Sean Wilson (Kirkwood Lounge, Cuatro) made them into tasso,

  

  stuffed trotters, bacon, and

  

  half a dozen other pig treats. This weekend, Blake returned with a pig and caja de chino, the boxes that whole hogs are cooked in in Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. It took just four hours. Blake can ship entire iced pigs and caja de chinos now, so that a pork lover has everything he needs for a perfect pig out.

  Side Dishes

  One hundred white clad diners attended the first Flash Dine event in Iowa at Pappajohn Sculpture Park this month. Some drove as far as Mason City… Peace Tree Brewery of Knoxville introduced their Kölsch style beer. It’s an amber lager without their usual bitterness and is a legend in Cologne.

  • 5:38 pm
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