The smell of woodsmoke filled the air outside Cochon last Tuesday night on Camellia Blvd. in Lafyatte. Chef Donald Link was keeping a watchful eye on a Berkshire Blue Butt hog that had been cooking over a bed of wood coals for nearly twenty hours. It was almost time for chef Link and his fellow chef and business partner Stephen Stryjewski to serve the smokey, sweet, juicy meat and pieces of cracked crisp skin to the eager crowd of customers, local chefs and a hand full of journalists in attendance. Inside the restaurant full-time Cochon Lafayette chef Kyle Waters III held down the fort creating an array of endless side dishes to accompany the pork. The pig was prepared by a method called asado, which Link and Stryjewski learned on a trip to Uruguay with other members of the Fatback Collective.
Ever since my foray into documenting North Carolina barbecue culture, woodsmoke and whole hog cooking are extremely exciting to me. I hope you enjoy the photos and I wish you could have been there...
Photos and text by Denny Culbert
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