October 19, 2004
Good Living
Cover Story – Simon Thomsen
Bright
lights, pig city
La Grande Bouffe's confit of Bangalow Pork Belly with
cabbage and apple.
Photo:
Quentin Jones
Where there's fat there's flavour - and Sydney's chefs
can't get enough of the next pig thing.
Homer: Lisa honey, are you saying you're never going to
eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad! Those all come from the same animal!
Homer: Yeah, right Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.
(The Simpsons, Lisa the Vegetarian)
Joe Byrne reckons he has set the Australian pork
industry back 25 years - and he's "proud of it."
Byrne is the marketing director for Bangalow Sweet
Pork and his passion to put the fat and flavour back in pork, in partnership
with producer Jim Berting, has put a bucolic village in the Byron hinterland on
the culinary map. City diners could be forgiven for thinking that decadently
fatty pigs now roam Bangalow's historic streets.
"Over 25 years," Byrne says, "the fat
content in pork has been halved. Quality only had one parameter and that was
lack of fat, so the meaning of quality has been distorted to mean lean. But
you've got to have the fat if you want flavour and moist meat. It's the basis of
our unique flavour and tenderness."
Things took a wrong turn, Byrne argues, with the arrival of
"new-fashioned pork". Believing consumers were terrified of fat, the
industry's marketing body, Australian Pork
Ltd (formerly the Australian
Pork Corporation), emphasised "lean" pork during the 1990s.
Critics interpret lean as "dry and
tasteless" and argue that if you want flavour, you have to have the fat.
And it seems chefs and diners agree - pork belly, with its enticing layers of
fat and meat, is unavoidable on many Sydney menus.
APL's media manager, John Lamont, says the simple fact
is the restaurant industry and the home consumer have different expectations.
The fat isn't welcome at home.
"When people go out for a dining occasion they're
not going out to diet," he says. "Different sections of the market
have different tastes.
"The educative role of the latest marketing is to
address the idea that you have to cook the hell out of pork, which people learnt
at the knee of their grandmother. The low-fat cuts can't afford to cook for too
long. But if you cook it on a medium heat, for two minutes a side, then it keeps
its juiciness."
Byrne in part blames an obsession with fat for the prevalence of bad pork.
"This country is fanatical in its food fads," he says, "whether
it's red meat or salt or pork fat. [Consumers] go from one extreme to the other
and don't think about moderation.
Chef Colin Fassnidge from La Grande Bouffe
Photo:Quentin
Jones
"When the pork industry got into bed with the
health nazis everybody forgot about taste. Jim wanted to stop the rot, but it's
been pretty hard to battle the status quo."
That hasn't stopped the pair turning the accepted
industry wisdom on its head.
Farmers are expected to produce pork with a certain
level of back fat and at a certain weight; those with larger pigs or high fat
levels face financial penalties.
Tallabung Pork, a new boutique producer near Forbes in
the state's central west, is following in the footsteps of Bangalow Sweet Pork.
After 20 years of growing white pigs, Andrew and Bec Williams have turned to
creating a premium product with fat and marbling.
Bec says the measuring system "crucifies"
farmers: "It's simply not feasible to produce 100 pigs with 12mm of back
fat and weighing up to 65 kilos. In fact, it's impossible."
Byrne says only the middlemen, who pay the farmers
less and pocket the difference, benefit from this system.
Between them, Byrne and Berting have spent more than
half a century in pork. Byrne once dealt in commodity pigs, selling about 1000 a
week; now, as a niche producer, the figure is just 70 a week.
The spark for Bangalow Sweet Pork came when a
disgruntled Italian client asked Byrne whether he could do better. Byrne turned
to Berting, who began working on the breeding and feeding to return fat and
marbling to the pig meat. Three accredited farms now produce Bangalow pork,
which goes through a strict quality assurance program using computers to monitor
every animal.
Despite the support of leading chefs, the company has
taken five years to get its head above water in an industry where many fail.
"More than anything, our philosophy has been
about keeping the producers viable. That means we pay a premium price and charge
one too," Byrne says.
To deal with the fat issue, Berting also worked on
raising the level of "good" unsaturated fats to almost two-thirds of
the total fat content.
The results were a revelation to Sydney's chefs. Irish
chef Colin Fassnidge of La Grande Bouffe in Rozelle uses Bangalow pork in his
confit of belly, served with cabbage puree, apple sauce and red wine jus. He
made the switch four years ago.
"It's like tasting the difference between a
battery chicken and a free-range corn-fed chicken," he says. "The
cheap pork turns people off the meat and gives pork a bad rap. The Bangalow pork
has better crackling and moister flesh. What do you want, quality or quantity?
The cheaper pork would be better for business [but] people are coming back to us
saying that they're appreciating the flavour of the Bangalow product."
Darren Simpson at Aqua Luna reckons Australians do not
understand pork. "When I first came here five years ago, I thought meat
production was shocking," he says, "It's come a long way since then,
thanks partly to people like Joe Byrne. It's great to see someone pushing a
product they're passionate about. It's all about the fat - that's where the
flavour is."
At nearby Aria, Matt Moran's confit of pork belly with
caramelised apple and balsamic is becoming a signature dish.
"In many ways," he says, "[Bangalow]
has changed a lot of people's thinking about pork and put it back on the map.
For years we were always told to eat lean, non-fat pork, but we had complaints
that it is tasteless and dry. I stopped buying pork and chefs in general stopped
cooking it, because it came out as dry as, and tasting like cardboard."
It's a common criticism from chefs about most pork.
Justin North from Becasse says it took time to change customer attitudes to
eating pork fat. "It's because they'd had it drilled into them that fat's
bad for you. Now people are starting to appreciate and understand it," he
says.
Bangalow Sweet Pork is rarely off his menu and it also
features in his coming book about his favourite producers.
"I haven't seen anything like this in Australia
for as long as I can remember," North says. "It's so different to how
the pork industry's been over the last few years.
Moving from regular white pigs to rarer breeds that
take longer to produce, the Williamses took two years to develop Tallabung Pork,
which has been available for just four months.
Matt Moran compares it favourably with Bangalow Sweet
Pork and it's already on the menu at hatted regional restaurants, such as
Orange's Lolli Redini, Millthorpe's Tonic and Collits Inn on the western side of
the Blue Mountains. Luke Mangan has it on the menu at Moorish and it is
available at Jones the Grocer in Woollahra.
Tallabung produces just 10 pigs a week, using older
English breeds and the endangered large black - which is regarded as the pork
equivalent of wagyu beef - but hopes to increase it to 50. The meat is hung for
additional flavour and tenderness.
Simonn Hawke from Lolli Redini says she's had nothing
but good feedback, "especially from older people who remember what pork was
like and say it's the best they've ever had. It has a sweet flavour and is
moist, and the marbling goes right through the flesh."
Of course, success breeds imitators and the word
Bangalow is appearing more frequently than $2 Rolex watches as the less
scrupulous try to lure the unsuspecting. There's no doubt the name is sticking
in people's memories.
"If I put the word Bangalow on the menu, it walks
out the door," Restaurant Balzac's Matthew Kemp says. "Other chefs are
using the word but the pork is crap."
Justin North says others are starting to copy the
Bangalow approach, "so far, without the same success, but it's a good
trend".
To combat the imitators, Byrne is implementing DNA
testing to track Bangalow pigs and weed out any fakes and is planning
accreditation for restaurants serving his pork. Butchers who sell it have to
sign agreements. His pride in his product is a reminder that sometimes, the good
old days were really good.
The Italian connection
If you want to understand pork, talk to an Italian.
Until recently, you could not expect him to say too many nice things about
Australian pork. Many a family might have knocked up some Aussie backyard
prosciutto and salami but few would have been pleased with the results.
But seventh-generation smallgoods artisan Pino Tomini
Foresti, from Pino's Meats in Kogarah, has changed his tune since he began using
Bangalow Sweet Pork.
"There are lots of things I can do with Bangalow
Sweet Pork that I couldn't do with other pork," he says. "It made me
go back into doing the things I wanted to do after battling for 27 years."
As well as selling the fresh pork, he makes stunning
salami, prosciutto, coppa, pancetta and hams by hand.
"I don't even need to use preservative in my
sausages and you can taste the difference."
However, he says, buyers needs to be educated.
"They think lard is lard. The amount of fat in the pork means a lot to the
flavour. A lot of people want their pork to be lean, but then you can't taste
it. It's better to cook with fat then take it off if you don't want to eat
it."
For him, the best proof for Bangalow Sweet Pork is in
the eating. "I had my brother from Italy here about 18 months ago and had
some of the pork chops on the barbecue. He tasted it and said 'do you know, this
is better than the pork in Italy?' I looked at him and said, 'I've been waiting
for you to say that'."
Chef Steve Manfredi is also a fan of the Bangalow
Babe. "The fact that it's hormone-free makes it different. I like to know
that it's been raised properly, but" - he laughs - "what breeds are
used and what they eat are trade secrets."
He's blunt about other types of pork: "I'd have
no problem eating lean pork if it had flavour, but I'm interested in how it
tastes."
Days of swine and roses
Pork is the world's most popular meat. Production has
doubled in the past 25 years and it accounts for more than 40 per cent of total
meat consumption.
Its Australian market share lags far behind that of
European countries such as Italy, where it is a longstanding staple, used in the
likes of prosciutto and salami. Until recently, Australians ate just eight
kilograms of pork each a year - and 37kg of beef.
In the past 18 months, however, pork consumption has
increased by more than 20 per cent; just over one in five dishes served contains
fresh pork, putting it on a par with chicken, while fresh beef features in one
in three. We now eat more pork than lamb, the price of which has rocketed. Pork
contributes about $2.5 billion to the domestic economy.
This year, the Federal Government approved 12
additional pork importers. Australian Pork Ltd is fighting the government over
what it sees as lax quarantine regulations - it claims the risk of exposure to
new diseases is too high.
Over the past decade, imports have triggered profound
structural change and consolidation in the local pork industry, with smaller
producers bowing out and overseas investors moving in to create larger
companies. The focus has shifted from the domestic market to export.
But in the midst of the big boys taking over, there
are a growing number of niche producers preferring to concentrate on quality,
flavour and kinder, hormone-free production techniques. Tallabung Pork, the
newest of the newcomers, plans to produce free-range pigs - a challenge for an
animal prone to sunburn.
Drought has had a big impact on pork production,
pushing up feed prices, and many see further troubled times ahead. Industry
experts predict that while herd sizes will increase next year, processing levels
will fall slightly.
Producers pay a slaughter levy of $2.435 on every pig
- Joe Byrne laughs that only a bureaucrat would arrive at a figure containing
half a cent - to fund APL, which spends $1.65 cents on marketing, 70 cents on
research and development and the remainder goes to chemical monitoring. APL is
pushing for the government to extend the levy to importers.
Three months ago, APL launched a new TV advertising
campaign, entitled "Hello! Life's juicer with pork". Critics see it as
an attempt to overcome the problems created by the emphasis on lean pork. Few in
the quality end of the market appreciate APL's efforts.
Where to get it
Bangalow Sweet Pork is available from:BBQs and Roasts,
169 Annangrove Road, Annangrove, 9679 0430
Castlecrag Meats, 93 Edinburgh Road, Castlecrag, 9958
4274
East Blaxland Butchery 45 Old Bathurst Road, East
Blaxland, 4739 1395
Pino's Butchery, 45 President Avenue, Kogarah, 9587
4818
Quants Quality Meats 17 Lindfield Avenue, Lindfield,
9416 1401
Terrey Hills Meat Boutique, 2 Booalie Road, Terrey
Hills, 9450 1638
The Organic Meat & Poultry Shop, Randwick Plaza,
130 Belmore Road, Randwick, 5573 0488
The Sausage Specialist, The Centre, Starkey Street,
Forestville, 9451 6840
TJ's Quality Meats, 319 Darling Street, Balmain, 9810
2911
Quality Meat Mart Shop 12 Beach Street, Woolgoolga,
6654 2646
Trevor Mead Quality Meat, 27 Jonson Street, Byron Bay,
6685 6583