A Pork Revolution - Bannatyne's

As a lover of food, who also happens to be an ecologist and animal lover, sourcing sustainable food that is ethically produced is important to me. One of my biggest struggles is finding pork which is ethically reared. Ironically, it is the pork that I am most fussy about since pigs are highly intelligent and factory farming of pork can be an extremely unpalatable business. Enter Bannatyne's - Hand Reared Pig, producers of artisan pork and charcuterie. 

The Bannatyne Husband and Wife team

We came across this husband and wife team doing a demo at the Good Food and Wine Show and were immediately taken with their passion and energy.The story of Trevor Bannatyne and his wife is point on point with our own dream in terms of the life Kyle and I are working towards. The description on the website sums it up pretty well "From Business Analyst to rural kwaZulu-Natal pig and livestock farmer. My pregnant wife, our baby boy and I packed up the creature comforts of city life to follow our dream of farming & running our own online deli. Our goal is to rear animals ethically and produce the best artisan pork products available".

Learning About Artisan Pork

They started off having bought a small intensive piggery and have been converting to an outdoor piggery (having spoken to a friend of mine who audits pig farms this is by no means a small or easy task). Trevor also explained how for them the traditional roles are reversed, he spends most of his time in the kitchen, while his wife spends her time in the piggery. And, after my brief encounter with them I say this is one women I would trust to love her pigs. They also produce free range lamb, beef and chicken which is an integral part of the piggery as it allows livestock rotation, which in turn allows the land to recover sufficiently from the destructive actions of free range pigs. This is of course, not without its own challenges, as Tevor explained. They once lost 180 chickens to Rooicat!

Dry Cured Bacon

Dry Cured Bacon:

The cooking demonstration was like an artisan pork 101 for us. Trevor explained how to dry cure your own bacon using pork belly in about 10 days. You start by curing the meat in a 3% salt cure by weight. ie. if you have a 1.5kg piece of belly you will use 40g salt and 10g sugar plus if you want a bit of pepper, clove and thyme for flavour. The pork should be placed in a zip lock bag and covered in this mixture making sure to rub it in at the ends. This is placed in the fridge and turned daily for about 2 - 2.5 days before the bacon is hung in a cool, dark place. They have converted an old rondavel on the property, for this purpose, which averages around 14 degrees centigrade throughout the year. You can also smoke it at this point if you wish. Because in this method you are using a dry curie as opposed to the quicker brining process, used by most commercial producers, you not only don't get the wet liquid coming off in the pan (only the fat which renders out) but you also get a lovely cracking from the skin as opposed to the chewy rind typical of bacon in years gone by. 

Just look at that crackling! Bacon + Crackling = Love

Trevor also demonstrated a slow cooked pork belly which had the most amazing texture and pure pork flavour and an usual fennel spiced chorizo sausage, which we both loved!

Fennel Chorizo - Yum!

You can be assured that soon as we have made space in our freezer we will be placing our on-line order for these remarkable Pork products! (visit http://bannatynes.co.za/Products for details on their range and how to order).

Trevor Bannatyne in Action

The (not so) Good Food and Wine Show

I realise this blog is a little bit after the fact but between one thing and another its been a hectic two weeks for the Two Pea's and a Potato Team. Our Potato dog somehow managed to swallow a piece of cow hoof the size of a Pringle chip which lodged itself well and truly in his gut. Needless to say, our silly Potato ended up having surgery and a lengthy (not to mention expensive) hospital stay. The good news is the little guy is now home and rather enjoying the fact he now gets four home cooked meals a day as opposed to his usual kibble. 

But I digress. Last weekend we visited the Joburg edition of the Good Food and Wine Show ("GFWS"). We were excited. Between the promise of great food, wine tasting and celebrity chefs such as, Adriano Zimbo, John Torode and Brent Owens it looked to be a good day out. I had heard mixed reviews in the past of this show but also that it has improved greatly. 

We had decided to Uber to the venue but after waiting 1.5 hours for the surge pricing to drop and then having a driver cancel our trip hoping to take advantage of the again increased surge pricing, we decided the only way we were going to get to the venue was by our own steam. Walking in the doors, a little bit grumpy it must be said, we opted to go do some wine tasting to calm our shattered nerves. This was not a good idea. There were about 10 wine estates present and it seemed like every person in the venue was trying to taste them all at once. The GFWS system is that you are required to purchase a tasting glass and tasting tickets. Each taste costs you a ticket. This means that even if you could get to the front of the lines you would not be able to taste many of the estates. It must be said most of the estates, to their credit were not enforcing this rule strictly. After all you can hardly hope to sell a case of wine to somebody who has not be able to taste it. After battling the lines for about 10 minutes we gave up and opted to rather have a draft from the guys at The Craft Beer Project. With many familiar craft brew names, we were soon watered and on our way to explore the rest of the show. 

The beer that saved us....

One of the first stops was to the Incredible India stand. The stand had a large display of all manner of spices which the stand staff diligently took us through explaining the flavour and uses. It was fascinating, though it was a pity that  we were unable to sample the spices, rather than just look and smell the small display pots. Wandering around we manged to taste a few things here and there before stumbling upon the charming husband and wife team from Stanley's Snails where we learnt about the intricacies of snail husbandry. We also loved the Disaronno Ammeretto Sour jars which keep us from going dry and left us with a set of cute jam jars. The food on sale in general was underwhelming and especially the burrito/soft shelled taco I had from a food truck in the venue whose name I cannot recall.

Learning about spices at Incredible India

Stanley and his charming snails

An underwhelming meal

Our favorite exhibitor of the day, hidden away in a far corner of the show, was the guys from Smoked Flavours. Smoked Flavours produce something they refer to as 'liquid smoke' which allows you to add a smoked flavor to almost any dish using a few drops of the liquid. The liquid is made by distilling the smoke flavour from actual smoke into a concentrated liquid which comes in a variety of wood options, each suited for different dishes or ingredients. The bottles were well priced at R35 each and we have used them a number of times since the show always to great effect. Our smoked ricotta ravioli was particularly delicious. 

Kyle learning about Smoked Flavours Liquid Smoke

There were a number of demo's going on at various paces throughout the venue but it was hard to tell what was being demonstrated where and at what times. We only, by chance, stumbled on the highlight of our day a demonstration at the Slow Food stage by Trevor Bannatynes from Bannatyne's Artisan Pork and Charcuterie which will be the subject of our next blog. Our penultimate stop of the day was to a cooking demonstration by Brent Owens in the chefs theater which we will also discuss in more detail in the next blog. 

Trevor Bannatyne showing off his dry cured bacon

Finally at 7.30pm as the crowds began to thin we decided to try the wine section again. We manged to taste some lovely wines from Alvi's Drift and purchased some of their ADS Chardonnay; which is well wooded and deliciously complex. We were just about to move on when the show organisers announced that the wine exhibitors had to stop all tastings in preparation of the show closing. This was at 7.45pm and the published close of the show was 8pm. This was less than ideal as we had planned our day around coming back to the wines after the cooking demo's and had based this on the fact the show only closed at 8pm. 

Brent Owens Cooking Demo

All in all we had a good time but I probably would not go again. At R155 per person with tasting tickets and R200 for chefs theater tickets (45 minute demo) it was an expensive day out that felt more like attending a trade show than a festival of good food and wine.