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