Hundreds of foodie fans gathered in the ballroom of the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel on Sunday, March as Cochon555 brought their celebration of heritage hogs, chefs, farmers and wine to Nashville for the latest installment of their competition cooking series.
Five chefs each were paired with a local farmer who presented them with a heritage breed hog to honor by creating six dishes to be judged by a panel of fellow chefs, food writers and local celebrities.
Each chef was also paired with a local sommelier who paired two wines to accompany the offering of plates created using all parts of the pig. The judges had ten minutes at each table to sample the dishes and the wines, so for those of you keeping count, that’s the equivalent of a 30-course tasting menu in less than an hour!
All five created amazing menus which were amazingly creative and delicious. Each one demonstrated his or her personal philosophy in the kitchen as they took the judges through their interpretation of the heritage hogs.
Chef Julio Hernandez of Nectar Urban Cantina reached into his Mexican heritage to present dishes ranging from delectable pork shawarma tacos to luscious pinto beans flavored with a homemade green chorizo to a pork jowl-infused chocolate dessert.
Kristin Beringson of Ellington’s Mid Way Bar & Grill demonstrated her charcuterie skills with some lovely pork rillettes and braunschweiger plus a pig’s blood gnudi served with maple pork sausage. Trey Cioccia from Black Rabbit and The Farmhouse offered a remarkable dish of mustard greens and belly ham wrapped in caul fat and an inventive dessert of pork and liver pâté plus pecan pie. Host chef Patrick Gossett of the Loews served one of the best dishes of the evening in the form of a croquette made from pulled barbecued spare rib meat and cucumber served with Alabama white BBQ sauce.
Photo Credit: Little Fib at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel
In the end, the winning chef in a really close competition was James Kerwin from Little Fib at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel. Kerwin’s menu took the judges from the morning meal to dinner and dessert, starting out with a salvo of breakfast scrapple on a biscuit topped with honey ham, smoked maple, blood orange hollandaise and Kentucky caviar.
His second offering would be an elegant quick lunch option, black truffle bologna served with American cheese atop a buttermilk roll. A dish of pig heart pastrami came accompanied with kraut and house made squash Thousand Island dressing. Kerwin utilized more non-traditional parts of the pig in his kidney and lung pie, flavored with boursin cream, charred scallions and tarragon. A bowl of pig face gumbo was definitely a favorite of the judges, served with sweet-and-spicy candied Freson chilis, popped rice and scallions. The meal concluded with a bacon and liver mousse cream puff topped with a cranberry glaze and pig skin sprinkles.
For his efforts, Kerwin was crowned “Prince of Pork” and will move on to compete at the national Cochon555 finals later this year in Chicago. He will certainly be a worthy representative for Nashville and of these five fine chefs.
