Pig: It's What's For Dinner (and Breakfast and Lunch)

Our little town is going to the hogs. From hoof to head, belly to brains, it’s swine time in TC.

Exhibit A: downtown TC’s newest restaurant The Towne Plaza makes no secret of its pig passion. So says its website: “We’re people with a passion for good food. And pigs.”

One question: Why?

“The pig is so versatile,” says Jennifer Albrecht, front of the house manager. Case in point: a Pork Belly entrée for breakfast (slow roasted and then seared, served with corn bread and a poached egg), a Pork Shoulder for lunch (slow roasted, Kansas City BBQ sandwich with slaw). Pork dinners? They’re coming soon.

The motivation for the menu’s key ingredient came from Towne Plaza chef and co-owner Chris Hoffman, who says simply: “I love charcuterie, sausages, curing meats.” Hoffman gets his Mangalitsa hogs from Baker’s Green Acres in Marion.

But with a menu built around the Mangalitsa, is Hoffman concerned about Michigan legislation looking to crack down on farmers who raise certain pig breeds considered invasive – including the Mangalitsa? “No, I think [Mark Baker] is going to win the fight,” Hoffman says.

Today at Trattoria Stella The Ticker finds executive chef Myles Anton in the kitchen butchering a whole hog. He figures it’s his sixtieth one since he started the “whole hog” approach at the Traverse City restaurant two and a half years ago using heritage breeds from Land of Goshen Farm in Kaleva.

From head to shoulder to feet, Anton uses it all. “In one shape or another, pig is all over my menu,” he says. But were his customers as quick to embrace it?”

“When we first put testa – Italian for pig’s head – on the menu, it was a pretty hard sell,” Anton recalls. But that has definitely changed over the last year with diners eager to try something unique.

“What’s cool about the pig is every piece can be used,” says Anton. That’s not the case with other meat, he says. Pig skin turns into pork rinds or chicharron. But cow skin? “You can make some leather,” he says.

Pig Precursor
Long before the whole hog was the darling of TC’s culinary scene, Ham Bonz on Eighth Street was smoking pork out back for its wildly popular pulled pork sandwich and other pig-inspired eats.

First opened 16 years ago and owned by Bo Uzzle for the last seven, the eatery is still crankin’. During the summer, Uzzle smokes 300 pounds of pork a week – enough for up to 800 sandwiches.

Pig Roast Party
Still hungry for more? Bowers Harbor Vineyards on Old Mission Peninsula is holding its first-ever Swine and Wine over Memorial Day weekend.

Chef and lover of “slow and low cooking” Adam Kline, owner of Pigs Eatin’ Ribs, a mobile smokehouse-style catering and vending service in Charlevoix, is handling the swine part. He’ll set up camp the night before and inject an approximately 100-lb. pig with BHV’s Spirit hard cider and roast it belly up (keeps the juices in) for 12 to 16 hours. You can belly up to the big event (slated for Sunday, May 27 at 6 p.m.) by calling 231-223-7615.

And This Little Piggie
One final, sad note: Happy Hog has gone to hog heaven. For all those lovers of the 1-lb. bacon BLT sandwich at the Happy Hog Cafe, The Ticker learned this week that it has closed after three years on E. Front Street.