More Men and Pigs: Cochon555 (a.k.a. Bacon in a Ballroom)

The icing on the cake (or rather, the lardo on the toast) of this whole man-and-his-pig trend that we reported on last week ("Enough Pig Posturing!"), might just be the upcoming Cochon555, "celebrating the heritage pig through cooking" it: five pigs, five winemakers, five chefs in "friendly competition." The poor pigs seem like they have a disadvantage here.

The chefs included are: Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats (duh), Nate Appleman of A16 (duh, duh), Ravi Kapur of Boulevard, salumi expert Steffan Terje of Perbacco and Peter McNee of Poggio.

Wait! Where's Chris Cosentino? Relax. He's a judge, along with everyone from Boulevard's Nancy Oakes (hmmm … juding her own chef), her husband and sausage king Bruce Aidells and Jeremy Fox of the vegetarian restaurant Ubuntu (who's probably thinking, finally—meat—I can be a man again!).

The big pig event, which started in Napa last year, has been traveling around the U.S., from Des Moines to D.C. to New York, and is going to be right here at the Farimont in SF on June 14. If dishes like chilled pork belly consommé with brain mousse (a real dish from a previous Cochon555) whets your appetite, sign up now. Seeing as all of the Cochon's have set up in big hotels, I'm thinking they should rename it Bacon in the Ballroom.

Here's a preview by way of bloggers drooling over the previous Cochon555 events:

New Pork (of course Fatty Crab put a can of PBR in the pig's mouth)

Chicago

D.C.