SNAPSHOTS | joe's bangkok
Always Bet on Black who presumably lacked the cash for fat white hogs with bloodlines stretching back to Denmark, f you run with the in-crowd Belgium, England, or New Jersey. amidst Bangkok’s fickle foodie Over the last three or four scene, you already know that years, that once-widespread Thai black pork—meat from locally attitude has been changing. raised black pigs—is a mad trend Chandler Schultz, head chef at at the moment. Bangkok’s Le Cochon Blanc (which Thailand is a bit late to the ironically means ‘the white pig’ in black pig trend compared to French), is a big fan of local black the rest of the world. England’s pork, for example. Berkshire black pigs have been “We’re known for using the praised for centuries, and more finest imported ingredients,” says recently Kurobuta—which simply Schultz. “I import probably the means ‘black pig’ in Japanese—has best butter in the world, I have become as popular an export for amazing Atlantic seafood, and I Japan as Wagyu and Kobe beef. have really great Australian beef. In Korea, pork lovers are crazy for I believe those products are the Jeju Black Pig, a small domestic best, so that’s what I use. pig found on the island of Jeju-do. “But when it comes to pork, Then there’s pata negra (black I would rather serve Thai-raised hoof), the Iberian black pig of Spain black pork than Japanese Kurobuta and Portugal. or Spanish Iberico. It’s the marbling, I remember it wasn’t that many the texture, and most of all the years ago that Thais considered flavor of local black pork that sets it black pigs to be the exclusive apart from anything else I’ve tried.” domain of northern Thai hill tribes, I recently visited a pig farm in
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Sanpatong, about 30 kilometres south of Chiang Mai, owned by American expat Randall Ellis. After a successful IT consulting career in the States, Ellis came to northern Thailand, married a Thai lady named Surin and established Surin Farm on three rai near her village. “I fell in love with the pigs very quickly,” Ellis said while showing me around his exceedingly wellkept farm. “They’re smart, they love people if you treat them well, and they grow a lot of meat real fast.” Ellis’s farm caters to three main local markets. Piglets reared from birth to around 25 days old are sold to Thais who are raising a few pigs on smaller farms along with other animals. Some also go to Thai farmers who are establishing satellite pig farms as part of a cooperative Ellis hopes will help maintain steady supply lines to Bangkok. The farm’s surprising middle market buys small- to mediumbangkok101.com
