185-Pound Hog Grows Community

Every man, Portuguese chef David Leite says, has an origin story, and every hog does too. In the Azores, from where his family hails, one pig will feed a family for weeks — because it has to. 

“With my family, what they would do is they would get a pig and they would raise it in the backyard, and then they would slaughter it in December,” he shared last week, addressing a crowd of 115 at the Institute Library’s third annual Flying Pig Roast, held this year at the home of members Debby Applegate and Bruce Tulgan. ​“It’s hung from the roof and everybody comes around and it’s a big celebration because they know they will eat for the next six or eight months.” 

The gustatory fanfare that follows, he continued, is rooted in a reality of not always knowing if there will be a reliable source of food. Beneath the first three weeks’ servings of chorizo, linguiça, and morcilla, or the next months’ of the hog’s lungs, heart, kidney, and skin, and the next of things preserved in lard, is a thankfulness that there is enough to eat. Paired with a tradition of families sharing their food with each other, it has been enough to pull the archipelago’s populations through.

“This idea is so rich,” he concluded. ​“That’s how these small towns stranded like marbles tossed and strewn in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean 1,000 miles off the coast of Portugal would survive.”

At first — or second, or fifth — glance, this necessity-driven thriftiness has nothing to do with the decadence of the IL’s hog roast, which this year paired a succulent, acorn-fed hog from Walden Hill with micro slaw, smoky collard greens, gooey mac-n-cheese, and a smorgasbord of beautiful cakes. Yet sustainability — environmental, culinary, and financial — remained the roast’s buzzword, on attendees’ minds as they looked not only to the pulled, still-steaming pork and frothy beer before them, but also to the IL’s future. At a time when the organization is still raising funds for much-needed repairs to its Chapel Street home, it’s a topic that members are eager to sink their teeth into.

Sink — and chew — they did. After a slow start at the beginning of September, the event sold over 130 tickets and grossed about $11,500. As one of the organization’s two annual fundraisers (Book Plates is the other), the roast is integral to the library’s ability to continue in the same capacity. For IL board members like Eva Geertz (pictured below), who doubled as cake chef extraordinaire, the event’s low-key, inclusive sense of community is also what the library’s all about.

“It’s a low pressure thing and I think that’s how the library itself is,” she said, donning an apron devised by Design Monsters’ George Corsillo. ​“You walk into the library and it seems like a formal place … it was conceived as an elegant space. And yet those of us who spend our time at the library are kind of … just people. It’s not that anyone said: ​‘We need to get together and roast a 200-pound pig.’ That was Jack [Hitt]’s baby. But I like being part of it. I’m proud that we do it.”

“This is about getting people to understand that there’s more to a pig than bacon,” added Walden Hill’s Jennifer Milikowsky (pictured below), who works directly with farmers in Connecticut to ​“blur the line between farm and forest” and sees her mission as not that different from the Institute Library’s. ​“I’m trying to promote eating whole hog, nose to tail. Food waste is a big part of the equation, and hog roasts are a good way of demonstrating the delicious aspects of these less common cuts. You can really enjoy a whole pig and have a great time around it. That way people enjoy it all together.”

At the farm, it takes a committed network to ensure that hogs grow up — and that their bodies are later consumed — in a sustainable way. At the Institute Library, too, it’s that sense of a small village that ensures the organization’s future. Black Hog Brewery donated beer. Jason Sobocinski made sides, thrilling with his smoky vegetarian collards. A pig roast committee met to find sponsorship. Design Monsters did the posters gratis. An overnight crew headed by seasoned pit master Jack Hitt, who often hosts the IL’s Amateur Hour, brought the whole event together.

There’s something there. Maybe it’s why IL Executive Director Natalie Elicker called it ​“the best pork I’ve ever tasted” after the roast. Or why Geertz is ready enter a 3‑week baking marathon again next year — and vows to try the pork when she’s reborn not as a Jew. Or why Applegate has declared that ​“everyone should be a patron of this library.” Or why Hitt had a simpler answer after spending 24 hours awake with the pig.

“I think we deeply sense that there’s something very primal and originating in our humanness when we all stand next to a fire with an animal on it,” he said, a crowd of well-fed and smiling IL members gathering around him.

“This is when we became human,” he added.