“We’ll call you about 48 hours before your dinner to confirm the number of guests to ensure that we have the right size of pig for your party.”
To be honest, my heart was somewhere between aflutter, smitten and several other adjectives that are typically reserved for emo kids during prom season. My juvenile excitement was simple: I had ordered a whole suckling pig that was going to be cooked at one of Philadelphia’s finest restaurants and devoured by a hand-picked squad of the some of region’s most ardent swine enthusiasts, The Society of Gluttony.
Special moments like this call for the creation special things. And by special things, I mean bad-ass logos with bacon banners:
This coat of arms was created by my colleague Mike Burton, a super talented graphic designer who understands the power of pork. His still-in-progress work was unveiled the night of our pig feast and was met with rave reviews by the Society members, who at that point had begun to get slightly rowdy.
Amada is typically thought of as the place that taught Philadelphians what tapas meant. Or it’s seen as a restaurant where an eager fellow will take his lady in an attempt to gain premature admittance into her britches. It’s a place where Philadelphians prove to out-of-towners that Philly is a seriously boss food city. To be honest, I thought it might be a bit too high-brow for nine guys likely to argue over who deserved the jowl meat.
Then I entered the restaurant and nearly tripped over a massive pig statue. Immediately, my fears shrank; my hunger grew.
We were seated front and center in Amada’s dining room, perched atop the restaurant’s largest table. We ordered a healthy round of drinks and waited for the most important guest in our party to arrive. And just like that, he was triumphantly wheeled to our table:
That’s a half of a baby pig, split length-wise, ready for carving (the other half was carved in the kitchen). The little guy’s only food source was his mother’s milk — hence the “suckling” moniker. That commitment to the healthy world of breast-feeding results in a more tender, flavorful swine. You see, I may be a savage, but I’m a savage with access to Wikipedia.
The pig was carved table side, and deposited on our plates. With absolutely zero hesitation, we all dove into our plates.
Holy. Mother. Of. Swine.
To be honest, going into this dinner, I thought the pork would be good. I figured it would be more of an event — a curiosity where we got in touch with our inner Cro-Magnon and enjoyed an animal slow cooked over a fire. But it was far, far more than that. It was, quite simply, the best pork I had ever eaten. It reminded me of the first time I went to a great steak house, where I entered with a “I’ve-had-steak-before-so-how-good-could-it-be” attitude and was utterly blown away by the quality and preparation of a simple meat. This pork had a similarly transcendent quality. It was salty, tender and had a lasting flavor that lingered on your palate far more than a supposed white meat ever should be able to.
A quick look on the internet shows how Amada’s Jose Garces gets this pork to be so damn good:
“Chef Garces brines each suckling pig for 24 hours in a salt water and sugar solution, to ensure the meat is tender and flavorful. Then he confits the pig in pork fat for up to three hours. After roasting it at 250 degrees for another hour, to crisp the skin and lock in its natural juices, it is finished with sea salt and arbequina olive oil.”
All that labor was well worth it. In particular, we appreciated the attention paid to the skin, which quickly became the most sought-after scrap at the table. Salty and hearty, this pork rind had bacon-like qualities, which can only be considered a good thing. By the end of the meal, I had an increased interest in porcine dermatology.
The meal, which is an absolute steal for $32 a person, also included four sides: Charred Green Onions, Herb-Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, Chickpeas with Spinach, and Rosemary White Beans with Ham. The sides rested, fittingly, in dog bowl-like dishes, and were consumed with wild abandon. The white beans were particularly great (they had pork in them, natch) and the green onions were surprisingly addictive.
Our pig provided each of us with a portion of food for our plates, as well as three extra heaping plates of pork that were placed strategically around the table for communal consumption. Being the gluttons that we are, we actually finished the entire feast, a feat that would likely cause post traumatic stress disorder to cardiologists and vegans alike.
And like that, the Society of Gluttony had enjoyed a feast for the ages. Now, it becomes a matter of topping it.
Sloth Street 