“No more pork belly!”
That’s what one of the judges said to me during the 20th Taste of Elegance culinary contest. He had just spent two days sampling 29 different pork dishes, so he might not have been in his right mind. But then again, he might have been.
The Taste of Elegance is a more-or-less-annual competition sponsored by the National Pork Board. Chefs compete at a regional level and the winners of those contests are then flown to a national championship, which was held in Baltimore this year. Usually fewer than 20 regions participate, so this year required some extra logistical machinations. And the judges—mostly past annual winners—had to eat more.
Of the 29 dishes, 10 had pork belly in them, and that doesn’t include the rillettes made by chef Andrew Little of The Sheppard Mansion in Hanover, Pa., which involved braising together pork shoulder, hock, head and tongue as well as belly. I don’t think that really counts.
A few years ago the Pork Board banned the use of tenderloin as the main ingredient in the competition. It could be used as a side item or accompaniment—many of the winning dishes use pork in a variety of shapes and sizes—but not as the main ingredient, because the whole point of the event is to find new uses for pork, and there are already plenty of uses for tenderloin. Besides, pork producers don’t have any trouble selling it.
Contestants in past years also faced a problem in that regional judges tended to prefer tenderloin dishes, while national judges wanted more trendy cuts like shank and jowl. Ten years ago, when I started going to these contests, I don’t think they imagined belly at the center of the plate.
But this year, first, second and third place all went to chefs who cooked belly. Stephan Hesse, who was at The Oak Grill in Minneapolis when he entered the contest, but has since left to work in Eden Prairie, Minn., won the competition with his curry pork belly and coconut panna cotta.
Second place went to Stephen Marshall of Medici, in Las Vegas, for his spiced pork belly with fresh hearts-of-palm cannelloni, braised leeks and apple glaze.
Mark Brown of The River Club in Suwanee, Ga., took third place with his “Piedmont Pork,” which was bacon-wrapped belly sausage with belly inlay, pulled sparerib-rosemary crêpe, peach “apple sauce,” whiskey-pickled vegetables, vanilla bean sweet-potato mash and pork demi-glace.
I only got to sample the food of the eight finalists, but it was all terrific, and that’s a big change, too, from when I first started covering the Taste of Elegance. There were plenty of hits back then, but there were misses, too. Now, instead of worrying about chefs’ competence, the judges’ biggest complaint this year, even more than that they were tired of belly, was that contestants simply tried to crowd too many elements onto the plate.
It’s a sign of how much more talented chefs have become in recent years, and of how the United States’ culinary culture has blossomed.
But the fact that so much belly was being served also shows how fad-focused many chefs have become. Sure, pork belly’s often delicious, and it’s the trendy cut, but there are a lot of other cuts out there.— [email protected]