Chicharrones by 4505 Thursdays 
at the Market

"Crispy clouds of porkaliciousness" is not necessarily the first phrase you think of when imagining

one of the most food conscious farmer's markets in the land, but that's what chef Ryan Farr, originally from Kansas City (meat capital of America), calls his lightly fried pig skins, which landed Farr a prime kiosk spot down at the Ferry Market.

'“We had all this extra skin left after buying whole pigs and using every other part, but there’s not a lot of use for pig skins,” says Farr. Now, the demand for Chicharrones has outpaced his need for the other parts of the pig, says the chef. So in recent months he’s been buying skins from the same local farms he’s

always gotten pigs from — Marin Sun Farms, Prather Ranch, Devil’s Gulch Ranch, and Niman Ranch, to name a few. As Farr sees it, smart, resourceful butchery is the only viable option at a time when eaters are becoming increasingly aware of what it takes to put a piece of meat on a plate."  

Farr turned his precociousness for butchery into a full entrepeneurial vision by opening up the standard idea of the vegetable CSA (community supported agriculture) to meat.  San Franciscans can pre-order packages of locally grown pork and beef and pick-up at a designated sight.  Education has always been a part of the vision as well, as 4505 not only conducts intensive butchery classes for a seemingly

 endless draw of willing participants, but have also assisted in teaching skills to the less fortunate citizens of the city, as well as creating the 'Feed the Pig' program, a philanthropy project which is dedicated to partnering with other organization in the bay area to promote healthy and sustainable food options for children in the community.

4505 shows us the cutting edge, literally, of how our new food culture sees and eats meat compared to even a decade ago when America, at least in popular culture, was beginning to lean toward vegetarianism and away from meat diets.  Farr, located directly inside the epicenter (on the San Andreas fault line) of American West Coast food culture, re-teaches us what we already know but lost track of: there's nothing wrong with meat, but to think about, care about, and consume the meat product consciously is where it's at right now.  Aldo Leopold, the great conservationist of the early 20th century, would be tickled at this 'slow and small' movement as he was the first to publicly call for a "Land Ethic," where people invest in the value of the land, the soil, the wildlife as if IT, along with us, were all connected, and all represented value, not just people and machines.  

So although the 'pig skin' has in the short past been frowned on because it's fried and meaty, perception has now taken a new turn.  The pork is local, organic, sustainable, and the entire animal is used not wasted.  The long line waiting for the bounty of fresh kale and brussel sprouts has now meandered back to the pig.