Mark Newman explains how to prepare a pork roast to a customer at the downtown market.
Mark and Rita Newman are accustomed to celebrity customers. Chefs from New Orleans to New York feature the farm’s heritage Berkshire pork on their menus, including such luminaries as Momofuku’s David Chang.
Still, even the Newmans were flabbergasted to learn that their pork belly would be served to Barack and Michelle Obama at a well-heeled fundraiser in St. Louis catered by Kevin Nashan, chef and co-owner of Sidney Street Café.
“I saw the menu myself,” Mark Newman said a few days before the event, held Oct. 4 at the home of Tom and Lisa Carnahan. “I told Kevin, all I want is a menu signed by the president.”
For $25,000 a plate, participants ate seasonal fare from local providers, including their choice of one of five entrees. I would have selected this, described on the menu in elegant cursive script: “Crispy Newman Farm Pork Belly with Lima Bean Ragot, Squash, Tomato Confit & Maple Froth.”
For a more complete look at the menu, click here for a description of the event by St. Louis food writer Joe Bonwich. And in case you don’t know (I had to look it up!), froth is a molecular gastronomy technique for making foam out of food. In other words: tiny bubbles.
