A perfectly caramelized half-pig is hoisted from the cooker and placed on a picnic table as party-goers gather in hungry silence. Anticipation is heightened, and the hush broken, when three chefs from Charlottesville’s Zinc bistro skillfully—joyously even—start breaking down the main course, their cleavers and 10-inch Wüstofs mixing lean, tender flesh with charred, crackling skin and still-sizzling fat.

     “I can hardly believe this is happening,” says Jarrett Freeman, pausing briefly to pop a matchbook-size chunk of succulent pork belly into his mouth. When Freeman isn’t cooking at a restaurant, he’s farming. Indeed, his desire to fully embrace this moment is in large part because the very beast he’s now sampling is the first he ever raised, and killed, himself. For Freeman, this event is both a festive way to spend time with friends and folks in the local food scene and an occasion to honor his 215-pound hog, Mr. Wiggles, in the grandest way he can think of—by eating him.

     Though Freeman has broken down his fair share of carcasses on the line, he was first inspired to delve deeper into the world of meats by Michael Ruhlman, author of Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing. At a lecture starring Ruhlman in New York City last year, the author made Freeman’s interest in charcuterie all the more intense. Afterward, Ruhlman signed his book with a simple phrase that has served as Freeman’s mantra ever since: “All hail the noble hog.”

     Another role model is local-foods champion Dan Barber, the farmer-chef at Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Blue Hill New York. “I spent a very special dinner at Blue Hill New York,” Freeman says. “I ordered the Berkshire hog tasting, and on the 14th course, chef Barber approached our table and told me that he felt it wasn’t the cook who was dictating our experience, but the farmer. This is precisely why I like to work with odd scraps—if we’re not utilizing every part of the animal, then we’re insulting the farmer.”

     The two men flanking Freeman at the picnic table carving station share his quest to use local foods and support area farms. Zinc chef de cuisine Justin Hershey—his intricate, swirling tattoos a blur as he chops—has an eat-local philosophy forged in the kitchen of chef Ian Boden’s Staunton Grocery, which prides itself on farm-to-table fare. “Ian opened my eyes to this whole approach to cooking,” Hershey says. “I saw how he established relationships with farmers directly. That’s how he makes it work.”

     The high praise is mutual. “Justin is one of the most creative people I’ve worked with. He knows flavors,” says Boden, recounting how when Hershey wasn’t completely satisfied with the short ribs being served at the restaurant, he conducted his own research at home to make them even better.

     Zinc owner and UVA grad Vu Nguyen—whose own less-extensive arm tattoos include the periodic symbol for the restaurant’s namesake element—served as the restaurant’s chef until he discovered the depth of Hershey’s talents and relinquished his back-of-house duties. Now he’s got a fresh approach he feels good about. “We weren’t setting ourselves apart before,” says Nguyen. “Then we got lucky and these guys came on board. I feel so blessed.”

Communal blessings often accompany a meal like this, but it’s safe to say that among the guests at this pork-centric feast, Freeman’s feelings about the contents of his plate are singular, bordering on the spiritual.

     His quest began last December, when winter’s first snowstorm stranded him on his rented patch of land in Barboursville for five days. “I just stared out the window at the barn and thought about the quality of pork I had been working with,” says Freeman. “I felt like I could improve my food without changing my technique, simply by improving the animal.”

     In January, he acquired two Duroc male piglets he spotted for sale on Craigslist. The novice farmer let Mr. Wiggles and Doobie, as he named the siblings, explore the pasture that first day. But when it took three hours to round them up, he decided to add a roomy fenced run to their pens in an old horse barn.

     The next five months presented indelible memories: The blizzard in February had Freeman trudging through feet of snow to break the ice on the piglets’ water trough. A neighbor, Bob Brooking, became an invaluable source of support and advice. “If I had not met Bob,” says Freeman, “none of this would’ve been possible.”

     Sometimes Nguyen and other members of the Zinc staff would visit, pop open a bottle of champagne, and watch the pigs be pigs. As they grew—and grew—so did the work: administering vaccinations, castrating, building a new gravity feeder. After five months, both pigs weighed upwards of 200 pounds, plenty big enough to slaughter. Mr. Wiggles, intended for the party, would go first.

     Three days before the feast, Freeman and Brooking herd Mr. Wiggles onto a trailer. “I think he knows what’s going on,” says Freeman. Mr. Wiggles slurps a “last-meal” beer from a pan, then flips the pan and chomps it. “Hey, that’s my good saucepan,” protests Freeman. “Okay, I feel a little less bad about this now.”

     In truth, Freeman views this task with a mixture of anticipation and dread, since he decided long ago that he would personally dispatch Mr. Wiggles. “I raised him, and I’m going to eat him, so the slaughter is just something I need to do myself,” he says.

     The trailer is hauled up the road to a pretty dairy farm outside Orange run by Sonny Ryder, a friend of Brooking’s who performs custom meat processing on the side. Ryder hands Freeman a pistol and points where the bullet should hit, between and slightly above the eyes.

     Freeman takes careful aim, squeezes the trigger—POP!—and Mr. Wiggles’ legs buckle. Then the hog unexpectedly rises. Freeman quickly repositions himself and fires again, until it is clear that the job is done. “Damn,” he says, a bit flustered. “That’s not how I wanted that to go.”

     Freeman leans against the trailer for a moment, silent, wrestling with his emotions. But when the other men loop ropes around the carcass’ hind legs and lift it into the air, he snaps back into action. He wants to make blood sausage, so slits the hog’s throat and positions a bucket underneath to collect the scarlet flow.

     Next, he helps scald the hide and scrape off its bristly red hair. A half-hour later, Mr. Wiggles has been fully dressed, and looks pretty much like any other processed pig hanging in a cooler, albeit with an impressively thick layer of fatback. Still, Freeman lingers for a few more moments, patting the pink carcass before heading home.

As if on cue, the tender, slow-cooked half-hog is cleaved into plate-size portions just as more guests, and more food, appear. The swelling smorgasbord isn’t exactly the style of fare served at Zinc, which tends more toward French bistro with a fresh, seasonal focus. “This is picnic day, you know,” says Hershey, sipping a cocktail from a Ball jar. “The only thing we’re missing is the Jell-O.”

     Still, given the number of trained cooks in the crowd, this potluck offers some impressive food. Sweet-salty collards that have been cooked to tenderness with bacon and pork stock are so delicious that, upon tasting them, a Southern guy who shall remain nameless admits, “If my mom made collards like these, I actually would’ve eaten them.” Next, there’s red-bliss potato salad with crunchy bits of celery and a healthy dose of white-wine vinegar, plus from-scratch mac-and-cheese with Emmentaler cheese and nutmeg. And then, ahhh, flaky, buttery biscuits and toothsome cornbread made by Hershey’s girlfriend, Lauren Boyd, who used to work at Newtown Baking in Staunton. For biscuit drizzling, there is honey from Hungry Hill Farm in Nelson County. “Butter and honey on biscuits is one of my hobbies,” Hershey says in appreciation.

     Chef Mark Gresge, of L’étoile restaurant, and his family bring sweet-yet-tangy baked beans. For anyone who managed to save room for dessert, there are picture-perfect apple pies. There’s plenty of Starr Hill beer on ice, or for those who prefer pairing pork with wine, there’s Blenheim rosé and table white.

      For these guys, this night is a practice run of sorts. After Mr. Wiggles’ larger brother is butchered at T&E Meats in Harrisonburg, he will be prepared in the Zinc kitchen for a special two weeks, from July 16 to 30. Hershey promises a menu of full-throttle pork, featuring a variety of dishes showcasing all parts of the animal.

     Zinc’s interest in raising its own foods doesn’t stop with the pigs. In front of the restaurant is a garden, mostly planted with greens and finishing herbs: different varieties of basil, thyme, chard, kale, sorrel, heirloom tomatoes. Right now, they’re getting 15 to 20 percent of what they need produce-wise from their garden, but the plan is to establish a larger plot in Esmont to grow more substantial crops, and to raise 60 percent of what they use in the restaurant.

     Zinc is also growing shiitake mushrooms and raising a flock of Cornish Rock Cross chickens that grow to four pounds. “They’ll be served proud, simple, and true,” says Hershey. “We might do a faux duck-leg confit with the chicken legs. And nothing will be wasted—the bones will be used for our sauce.”

     Ultimately, Freeman hopes to continue raising pigs and chickens, and add beef to his farming portfolio—whether it’s for Zinc or somewhere closer to his new home in Richmond. “I just want the experience of raising each animal for meat processing,” he says.

     So how does he feel as he enjoys his second (or is it his third?) helping of the pork he raised, slaughtered, and cooked? “Maybe it is expected that I would have mixed emotions,” he says. “But honestly, at this moment, all I can think about is the quality of fat on this animal. It feels good to pull off a piece of fatback and pass it to someone who hasn’t had that experience.”

ZINC'S HOUSE-RAISED PORK
The other Duroc hog raised by Jarrett Freeman will be served at Zinc from July 16 to 30; dishes like confit pork belly, and sausages, pâtés, and headcheese (www.comptoirzinc.com). To read more about the trials and glories of raising your own pigs, go to bistrozinc.blogspot.com.

RECIPES OF A PIG ROAST

web exclusive!
Justin Hershey's Mac and Cheese

1 pound elbow macaroni
2 ounces butter
2 ounces flour
8 cups whole milk
1/4 of a peeled Spanish onion, studded with cloves
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
4 ounces grated Emmanthaler or Gruyere cheese 
Coarse salt, to taste
2 cups heavy cream 
Freshly ground pepper, to taste 

1. Bring large pot of salted water to a rolling boil; add pasta and cook until al dente (still toothsome). Drain in colander.
2. Meanwhile, melt butter in saucepan. Add flour, and whisk to form a loose paste (you're making a roux). Continue to whisk slowly as you add the milk. Bring to full boil, while continuing to whisk (to ensure a smooth sauce). 
3. Once the sauce is thickened, add the onion and nutmeg, and season with salt; reduce heat and allow to simmer to cook out any raw flour flavor. Once satisfied with the flavor, remove onion and allow to cool slightly before whisking in cheese and heavy cream. If not serving right away, allow sauce to cool before mixing with noodles so they won't continue to cook; or mix with noodles and serve right away. Reseason with salt and freshly ground pepper.