PRAISE THE LARD

8/14/2019 PRAISE THE LARD

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PRAISETHELARD An interview with certi ed organic pork producer Doug Stonebreakerby Bay-Area locavore chef James Stolich



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Here in Northern California we have a plethora of small farms doing amazing stu , all organic, free-range, and devoid of antibiotics. One of my favorite farms is Prather Ranch. While they producemostly beef, Prather retail shop owner Doug Stonebreaker recently started a herd of pigs under theRange Brothers label, and they are absolutely fantastic.

I caught up with Doug at his retail shop at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco to ask him

what makes his pork so special. Doug looks like a real cowboy and is wearing a shirt bearing the words“PRAISE THE LARD.”

I also am sharing my recipe for Doug’s pork shoulder chop.

Enjoy, James Stolich www.CookWithJames.com

If you are living in the United Statesand into food and sourcing your ownlocal ingredients, there has neverbeen a better time.All over the country farmer's marketsare popping up and more people haveaccess to small, local producers andpurveyors.

http://www.cookwithjames.com/




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James: Where is Range Brothers?

Doug: Range Brothers is in NorthernCalifornia in the Capay Valley. ChrisSimas and his brother Mark Kellerown the ranch, and I lease out some

of their land for my herd of pigs.How many pigs do you have?

We probably have about 40 sows and4 boars, give or take.

How often do you slaughter pigs?

We slaughter pigs every other week and we do about 7-10 total, so it’s a

relatively small production.What kind of pigs do you have? Can you describe the breed?

Well we have mostly Berkshire anda few Berkshire cross. We startedthe program by bringing in mainly pure-bred Berkshire stock from Mark Newman in the mid-west (Missouri).He does a lot of the heritage stu .

We’ve had some Gloucester OldSpots & Large Blacks, but mostly we

work with Berkshire.

And what does heritage mean?

Well heritage breeds are essentially old breeds. ey are di erent

varieties of old breeds which havenot been genetically modi ed and

monocropped, which you nd withmany of the modern pork industry pigs. For example, double-breasted

white chickens and turkeys have allbeen mono-cropped to produce both

whiter and larger breast meat.

So Berkshire is a heritage pig?

at’s right.

And how do you care for these pigs? What’s going on with them? What do you feed them? Are they totally free-range and outside?

Yes, they are on pasture and are freeto roam. We do have a barn wherethe pigs can go into the shade. ereare misters there for the summer as itcan grow quite warm. ere’s straw there. We don’t ever use farrowingcrates. e pigs are raised underthe certi ed humane program, so

we get audited every year by theCerti ed Humane Organization( www.Certi edHumane.org) andare third-party-inspected. e pigsare fed a ration of various grains andnutrients. en they are also supple-mented with organic produce fromthe area ... anything from butternutsquash to pumpkin to whateverhappens to be seasonal and local.

http://certifiedhumane.org/

http://certifiedhumane.org/



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Do you feed them acorns or nuts?

Well they are free to roam and so they eat quite a few acorns out in the open.It’s a funny thing. An acorn will dropin the distance and they will all run

for them. ey like them that much.It’s really hard though whenpeople say they haveacorn-fed pork, as it’schallenging to getenough acorns tomake a big dent

when you aredealing with 200-300 pound pigs.

at’s a lot of acorns,but they do eat someand they forage like crazy.

I wonder if that’s why the acorn-fed Spanish black-footed pigs are soexpensive?

Yeah, it is because they are usingas much as they can nd. One day I’d like to go over there and see it,because I don’t understand how they

nd enough acorns. Oak trees don’tproduce that many.

For the recipe accompanying this interview, we are using the shoul-der-cut chop. Maybe you can talk a bit about that?

Well it’s probably my favorite cut if

I’m going to grill something. Mostpeople pass it up for a loin ora rib chop or something

like that. I like theshoulder chop as theshoulder tends tobe the most a-vorful part of thepig. It’s very well

marbled and usu-ally has a nice piece

of bone in it for a-vor. And oftentimes, on a

conventional pig the shoulder will bedry and chewy. So it’s generally bestbraised.

But when you raise the pigs well andthey have all that intra-muscular fatand they’re good quality, that shoul-der chop tends to be very tenderand very tasteful. So for me, if they don’t look as uniform or pretty asa loin chop, I still get people to try

them and usually they get hooked.en it’s hard to go back. If you have

a natural preference for somethinglean, then you may not enjoy it, butmost people prefer it.

Yes the rst time I cooked it,I was amazed. I was originally going to braise it since it’s shoulder meat, but I looked at it and said this doesn’t need braising. Tis is going to be unbelievable. And it’s probably the best piece of pork and my favorite piece I’ve ever had. Tat bone-in shoulder chopis extraordinary.

Yeah, my next favorite after that isprobably some kind of rib chop outof that country rib side, which isthen getting very close to theshoulder. And all those piecestend to have more avor.

Or just like the picnic roasts slow-roasted to pink and sliced really thin.

Damn, you’re making me hungry.



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So what are your future plans for your pigs? Are you going to kind of keep this level at a small produc-tion or try and scale a bit? Are you able to expand a little bit the num-bers and keep the quality, or is this the level where it needs to be?

Well, it’s not really optimum. It’salways better to be able to do a bitmore volume than what we’re doingnow. We can’t grow too much moreout there just because of the certi edhumane protocols and how many pigs we can raise. You don’t want tocrowd them and things like that, so

we are fairly limited.

We might bump up to where weget to potentially 12-15 pigs every couple of weeks o this piece of ground. Other ways we’ve tried tobranch out is where we’ve worked

with other farmers who are friendsand are struggling to raise pigs in asimilar fashion.

And so we are working with themand trying to hook them up withchefs who will use their products andin this way build relationships so that

we can all raise pigs according to ourprotocols.

Other options are to nd people whohave the right kind of infrastructureand go in and say, hey, we want to

raise some of these heritage pigs onyour land. Let us go in and use someof these assets that you have and raisepigs using the same standards. Wemight be able to grow that way.

One of the draw-backs of doing live-stock in California is that you arealways limited by the resources. And

everything is so expensive that it re-ally does hamstring you quite a bit.

What’s the biggest problem, in your mind, with mass-produced pork?

Biggest? Gosh, I don’t even know where to begin. ere isn’t really any one particular thing. ere areso many things that sort of cometogether to cause issues. It has to do

with over-crowding ... I mean you’retalking about 10,000 pigs in roughly one acre in a big metal shed.

Like a feed lot?

Well they’re actually metal buildings with metal-slatted oors with far-

rowing crates where the females don’tmove. ey use lots of antibioticsand hormones. e waste productsare also very toxic. It’s sort of just amess all over the place.

en on top of that, you’re lookingat a low-quality, genetically modi-ed pig. You probably remember the

campaign created in the 80s called“THE OTHER WHITE MEAT”

which is still popular in the mid- west though not here so much. ey genetically altered the “p-train” pig,

which is already a lean breed of pig,and tried to make it even leaner.

And now they have stress genes so,they are pretty screwed up geneti-cally. ey’ve bred all of the quality and fat content out of the pig. Gen-erally they are re-injecting them witha saline phosphate solution at the

marketplace.So when you are buying a pork chopyou are often seeing the label say thatthe pork may contain up to 20%salt phosphate, etc., because they aretrying to add juice back to the pig,similar to what they are doing tomodern chicken. ere are all sorts

of problems.



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Well, I grew up in the Californiamountains in San Joaquin Valley doing agriculture as kid: raising ani-mals, steers, sheep, pigs. I worked insome industrial-type environments... dairy farms, feed lots, and gotburned out on it. Didn’t want to doit anymore. Decided that it was not

for me.By the time I was out of high schoolI was sort of disillusioned, becausethe thing I enjoyed and loved todo so much, to me, became sortof tainted and I didn’t really enjoy it anymore. It was pretty ugly, so Idecided to do other things.

What really changed me was travel-ing around through Europe andback-packing. I didn’t have any mon-ey and I went around and saw allthese environments where they weredoings things di erently. I thought,gosh, I wish this was the way it wasback home.

So later in life, when I came back,and in college, actually, I had anopportunity to work in the organicvegetable business. en later Istarted working with Prather Ranchand began marketing for them andtalking about selling this organically produced meat. It was a new idea at

the time and just sort of expandedfrom there.

Maybe you can talk 20-30 seconds on your background and how you got into this business?



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RANGE BROTHER BONE-IN PORK SHOULDERCHOP WITH SAUTEED BRUSSELS SPROUTS

Recipe courtesy of James Stolich of www. CookWithJames.com

is has to be one of my favorite pork cuts. It really only works with the bestquality pork, so make sure you are either buying direct from Prather Ranch/Range Brothers or from a small, local producer of heritage pigs.

e fat and marbling on this cut are amazing, and I like to simply grill itlike a steak. When done right, it’s incredibly tender and succulent with loadsmore avor than your typical loin or even rib chop.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 4 bone-in shoulder cut heritage pork chops

• salt & pepper

• extra virgin olive oil

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter

• 1 pound brussels sprouts, peeled and trimmed of excess leaves, cut into1/4” round slices

• 1/2 pound maple-wood-smoked bacon (or any good-quality artisan baconor pancetta from a heritage pig)

• 1/2 cup dry white wine

• 2 tablespoons of best-quality dried Herbs De Provence





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RANGE BROTHERS BONE-IN PORK SHOULDERCHOP WITH SAUTEED BRUSSELS SPROUTS (cont.)

Instructions

Take your shoulder chops out of the refrigerator at least one hour priorto cooking. Liberally season them with salt and drizzle with olive oil.

Rub the oil and salt into them and allow them to come to room temperature.

Meanwhile, prepare your brussels sprouts for cooking by cutting o the bottom and peeling o the tougher outer leaves. en slice each

sprout—depending on size—into 2-to-3 1/4” round pieces. Cut your baconup into a medium dice.

Now that all your “mise en place” is done, you are ready to cook. In amedium sauté pan, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil with the butter over

high heat until almost smoking. Add the brussels sprouts and cook on oneside until nicely brown and caramelized, approximately 4-5 minutes. Gently salt them and season with the herbs. Flip the sprouts and continue cooking.

Add the bacon and stir through. Lower the heat to medium and cook until the other side of the sprouts is slightly brown and the bacon is

rendered but not overly cripsy. Turn the heat down to low and de-glaze thepan with white wine. Continue cooking at a simmer until the alcohol hasburned o , approximately 3-4 minutes. Take o the heat and set aside andkeep warm.

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RANGE BROTHERS BONE-IN PORK SHOULDERCHOP WITH SAUTEED BRUSSELS SPROUTS (cont.)

Heat up your countertop grill on high or a grill pan over a high ame

(or do this over a wood re or barbecue).For countertop grill: When ready, place pork shoulder on grill and close.Cook for 3-5 minutes or until an instant read thermometer inserted into thethickest part of the pork (not touching the bone) reads 130 degrees.

For grill pan: When the grill is very hot, place the pork shoulder into the cen-ter of the grill pan. Cook without disturbing for approximately 4-5 minutes,depending on the thickness of the cut. Flip and cook another 3 minutes onthe other side or until an instant read thermometer inserted into the thickestpart of the pork (not touching the bone) reads 130 degrees.

e chops should be nicely browned on both sides. Remove to a cutting boardand let rest for at least 8 minutes.

To plate, arrange several spoonfuls of the brussels sprouts/bacon mixtureonto the center of four plates. Place a cooked pork shoulder chop over

the top of each and drizzle with pan juices.

BUON APPETITO!For more recipes see www. CookWithJames.comand www.Food inkers.com

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http://www.foodthinkers.com/





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Certifed Humanee Certi ed Humane Raised and Handled program is the only farm animal welfare and food labeling program in

the U.S. dedicated to improving the welfare of farm animals from birth through slaughter for the 10 billion farm

animals raised for food each year. www.Certi edHumane.orgFood Tinkers by BrevilleFood inkers is an online stream of simple moments of brilliance from kitchen collaborators around the world—recipes, food pics, video, sound, and taste. Brought to you by Breville. www.Food inkers.com

James Stolich James launched Cook With James (CWJ) in 2002 as an underground supper club. James would put togethermultiple-course dinners using only organic ingredients from local farms, and guests would o er donations to helpcover the food and labor costs. Last December, James decided to leave his job at an international online advertising& marketing agency and transform CWJ into a full-time business. CWJ now o ers an array of private chef &catering services including private dinners, cooking classes, and catering events. www. CookWithJames.com

Prather RanchPrather Ranch is a sustainable, 40,000-acre cattle, hay, and farming operation situated in the pristine region of northern California, where the air and water are pure. is reputation ranch has been recognized nationally for itsprogressive and sustainable ranching philosophy and the establishment of a superior branded beef product.

www.PratherRanch.com

Range Brothers A 20-acre farm in the Capay Valley in Northern California. ey farm 100% free of herbicides, pesticides, andnon-organic fertilizers. eir background is in forage-based cattle production, and they have set up their farm like apasture-based cattle ranch. www.RangeBrothers.com

MORE INFORMATION

http://www.certifiedhumane.org/



http://www.pratherranch.com/

http://www.rangebrothers.com/



http://www.pratherranch.com/



http://www.certifiedhumane.org/

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