Tamara Murphy Celebrates "The Life of a Pig"

Tamara Murphy of Brasa is the most courageous chef in town. Like many restaurateurs, she wants to feel more connected to the sources of her raw materials. Like her Belltown colleague Chris Keff of Flying Fish, she's particularly impressed by the humane and sustainable practices at Whistling Train Farm, the family farm in Auburn that supplies the suckling pigs for Brasa's signature dish, roast pig with chorizo and clams.

Murphy's passion goes well beyond the fashionable quest for heirloom vegetables. Back in January, she starts a blog, "The Life of a Pig" that follows a litter of piglets from birth to ... well, we know where this is going: to slaughter to kitchen to table. Weekly entries chronicle their lives as they romp, feed and grow. She writes: "As a chef I am so thrilled to have this opportunity to actually feed them product that will change their flavour. Not only do our pigs get to root in the dirt for bugs, and plants, but items such as sweet potatoes, apples, nuts and berries will be apart of their diet, This is a good life for a pig."

As the piglets approach 100 lbs, it's time for their trip to an approved slaughterhouse in Puyallup. Murphy follows, watches, snaps photos (which she doesn't publish), pokes their livers. An hour later, the piglets are in her walk-in cooler at Brasa. And tonight, 130 guests sit down to a banquet celebrating the piglets' lives.

Nothing is wasted. Trimmings, fat, hearts, livers, kidneys and tongues go into an "everything pig pate." Shoulders, heads, trotters and hocks become a traditional posole. Loins are grilled, riblets smoked. Cracklings from the fatty skin accompany the salad course. Pork belly becomes bacon brittle, served with dessert. There's even a perfect wine, a pinot noir from Oregon's EIEIO & Co., called, would you believe it, Life of a Pig. $35 a bottle, autographed, simply, "Tamara."

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By Ronald in Food, News on April 21, 2006 11:21 AM

Comments [rss]

Ronald

If pigs have feelings, it's doubtful those sentiments could extend beyond the boundaries of the piglets' experience, and the world they "know" is, at best, 20 by 20 feet. Mari equates their cuteness and alertness with sentient intelligence. Besides, who's to say that carrots don't have "feelings"?

Mari

It still boggles my mind that anyone who watches a creature grow up from a baby, can stomach watching it be killed and then actually eat it. I always thought if more people made the connection between the stuff in the plastic wrap at the store with the real, living, breathing creatures that more people would stop eating meat. Apparently this isn't true. Which is a very sad day for me. Why can people eat these sweet, beautiful, smart pigs? Same people who are willing to eat their pet dog? You know pigs make great pets? I would really like to know how this chef can do this. I'd really like to understand what can allow her to feed an animal and then kill it and prepare it for other people to eat. Where's the compassion? the empathy? Pigs have feelings too.