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>> ANTHONY BOURDAIN: In this episode of The Mind of a Chef, April Bloomfield travels to Cornwall, England.

>> APRIL BLOOMFIELD: What's the breed of the Mangalitsa?

>> TOM ADAMS: That's the blond.

>> BOURDAIN: Talks Mangalitsa pigs with her friend Tom Adams at Westhead Farms.

>> BLOOMFIELD: They look like a sturdy breed.

>> ADAMS: Yeah.

>> BOURDAIN: Visits the dry aging room with butcher Ian Warren.

>> BLOOMFIELD: It's like I've died and gone to heaven.

>> BOURDAIN: Cooks jowls.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Sweet, salty, porky.

>> BOURDAIN: And makes her famous pig foot for two.

>> BLOOMFIELD: This is, like, the best butcher's I've seen.

I mean, look at all this stuff.

I just kind of want to camp out here.

So amazing.

>> BOURDAIN: Enter the mind of a chef.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Sometimes it's the simpler stuff that really kind of blows your mind.

This is the best thing, I think, you'll ever eat.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I didn't fidget.

Do you see that?

I'm so proud of myself.

Made me jump.

So the southwest of England, Devon and Cornwall, it's very beautiful.

It's probably, like, the nicest part of England for me.

And I have very dear ties to it, you know?

We used to go there on family holidays.

You know, we used to go caravanning... what was that?

Something just... did you see that?

He's like...

It's a ghost.

Cornwall is a place I used to visit quite often, because a very dear friend of mine, Tom Adams, raises his own pigs there.

And these pigs are amazing pigs.

They're fat, curly, big, wooly pigs.

And the flavor on these pigs are amazing.

Sweet, delicious.

I mean, I have a picture on my phone.

I look at it every now and again.

Their other name is Mangalitsa, and they originally come from Bulgaria.

>> BLOOMFIELD: How many do you have altogether, you think?

>> ADAMS: Well, there's about 50, 50 or 60.

Lots of them wieners and piglets, just because, you know, it's such a new thing for us.

And so it's sort of the very beginning of a process.

>> BLOOMFIELD: That's a Berkshire, right?

>> ADAMS: Yeah.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And then that's the old spot.

But what's the breed of the Mangalitsa right there?

Is that the blond?

>> ADAMS: Yeah, that's the blond.

The Mangalitzes here are blond.

And there's three types.

There's a blond, a red, and a swallow belly.

And the blond was originally bred for curing, charcuterie.

They have huge amounts of fat.

It was prized for its fat.

And they used to trade it on the Vienna stock exchange.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Oh, really?

>> ADAMS: They valued it so much.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Now, these are making a big old noise.

Are they hungry?

>> ADAMS: Yeah, they're hungry.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Whew!

>> ADAMS: These are getting fed on a starter diet.

>> BLOOMFIELD: What's their starter diet?

>> ADAMS: When they come up for milk, they get fed high protein pellets.

They get that high protein to start to build up the muscle, >> BLOOMFIELD: To get their muscle.

ADAMS: Yeah, get them going.

And then from there they're going to forage in the woods.

>> BLOOMFIELD: He, like, lets them scatter around this lovely farm.

They just forage, they just... they roam free.

After about three months he lets them roam to the pasture.

He has this big wooded area and he just lets them forage.

>> BLOOMFIELD: How long do you think it would take him to rummage through this?

>> ADAMS: Two months.

>> BLOOMFIELD: So it's kind of quiet here.

There's probably no piglets, right?

>> ADAMS: No, no piglets here.

This is... this is purely the fattening pen.

So they'll come here at sort of 12, 16 weeks, and this'll see them through, really.

>> ADAMS: They'll stay here, forage, do their thing.

They're going to develop really slowly.

And it's just going to make... make a great, great pig.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And so then when you've moved on from this, all that... all that kind of manure that they've been making is going to fertilize the land, so everything's going to shoot up pretty fast, right?

>> ADAMS: Yeah, in a few months, when they go off, it's not going to take much for this to go straight back up to waist high.

Yeah, you should usually rest it for six months.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And then next year you'll... >> ADAMS: Yeah, bring them back on.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Should we go feed them?

>> ADAMS: Yeah, let's go feed them.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, this is nice and steep for them, huh?

>> ADAMS: Yeah it keeps them... keeps them nice and fit.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, gets them fit.

>> ADAMS: Well, this is their natural habitat.

This is really where they should be.

They've come from an environment that's really hardcore and rough, you know?

In the mountains, in the woods.

You know, they love it.

And they're going to be a fit, fit animal.

You know, lots of muscle getting used.

They're going to be... they're just going to be in great shape.

>> ADAMS: They're going to take a lot longer to grow, because they're, you know, getting a workout.

They're not eating huge amounts.

They're foraging a lot.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I mean, they already look like they're in good shape.

You know, they look sturdy.

They look like a sturdy breed.

>> ADAMS: Yeah.

I mean they're real, real hardcore pig.

>> BLOOMFIELD: They're so perfect looking.

>> ADAMS: I love them.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I mean, look how happy they look.

They look so happy.

>> ADAMS: I want to do this.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I think chefs are a little bit different from farmers, just because the chef's always thinking about the flavor, you know, ultimately.

So it's actually nice when you get to work with somebody that has the experience of breeding the animals, and kind of collaborating.

And I think that's the nice thing about Tom and his farmer is that he has the experience of the husbandry and looking after the animals, but Tom can be like, "Okay, well, I tasted the last pig "that we slaughtered.

Maybe we could just adapt the flavor there."

You know, it's kind of... it's like a little symbiotic kind of relationship.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And everybody gets to learn.

It's like a win-win kind of situation.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Tom has an amazing restaurant in London called Pit Cue.

Pit Cue is a barbecue restaurant.

And it is by, I think, my opinion, hands down the best barbecue restaurant in London.

It's elegant.

It's really delicate on the smoke.

>> ADAMS: Yeah, nice and simple.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah.

And I think it's due to your passion, and basically all the ingredients that you source, and the wood that you find.

>> ADAMS: Yeah, I mean, we... we focus on getting really nice things into the kitchen.

It forms the basis of everything we do.

I mean, just like you.

If you get nice things in, you have to do very little to them to make them delicious, you know?

So, I mean, with this, it's exactly the same.

We've got a really nice pig.

We just take the jowl off, and we brine it for 24 hours, smoke it really lightly for, like, six, seven hours so it goes sort of super soft.

We press it just so it gets a better texture, and we're then going to trim it, pan fry it, a little bit of apple ketchup.

It just goes really well with a smoky, rich cheek.

>> BLOOMFIELD: That's kind of a classic English combination, that kind of pork and apple.

>> ADAMS: Yeah.

Apple and pork, you can't really beat it, you know?

When we get the jowl like this, that comes with the cheek muscle on.

Sometimes that gets taken off and comes separately, but you want that.

That's a nice dense muscle.

So this has gone through a brine in the restaurant.

The chefs call it a bake and brine, or the mother brine.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I like that.

>> ADAMS: Yeah, it's really good.

We become sort of crazy addicted to it.

>> BLOOMFIELD: It's one of those kitchen staples.

>> ADAMS: Yeah, you know?

Everyone just becomes obsessed with it, and you just try and... we would brine a whole pig if we could in it.

>> BLOOMFIELD: If you had the room.

>> ADAMS: That would be good, wouldn't it?

>> BLOOMFIELD: One day.

>> ADAMS: So we're going to trim this.

This has now been pressed overnight.

Makes a really nice texture.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, I like that you flattened it out.

It just means it's going to caramelize a little more evenly.

>> ADAMS: Yeah, and we just take the skin off.

Really, really simple.

So we'll do this, trim it sort of roughly like that.

And then we're going to pan fry it.

Nice and crispy.

So let's get it in.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, great.

It's not going to take long at all, is it?

>> ADAMS: No.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I love that sound.

You know it's searing when it's got that kind of, like, sizzle.

You can see it all kind of starting to bubble on the edges.

>> ADAMS: Yeah, and it goes such a nice color, you know, when it's really... when you get the fat really crispy, oh.

It's my favorite.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Sweet, salty, porky.

>> ADAMS: Yeah.

That's like... it's the magic combo.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's starting to... >> BLOOMFIELD: Starting to get a nice brown.

>> ADAMS: Yeah, in no time at all, actually.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Things brown a lot faster, don't they, when they're kind of, like, brined and smoked.

>> ADAMS: Yeah, yeah.

And why is that?

>> BLOOMFIELD: I think it's just because you pulled out all the... >> ADAMS: The moisture.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, the moisture, in the meat and the fat, all thosyou know?

sugars >> ADAMS: I don't want to pan fry it too much on that side, because that's where... all the spices and whatnot from the rub.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Cool.

It's, like, two minutes or something?

>> ADAMS: Yeah.

Two minutes, get it heated through, just so all the fats start to melt.

And then we're ready to go.

>> ADAMS: It's nice and crispy.

>> BLOOMFIELD: It's a great sound.

>> ADAMS: Good sound, huh?

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, it's got, like, a little crunch to it.

>> ADAMS: Yeah.

So you get a little bit of the muscle there, the main cheek muscle, and if you don't press it, it sometimes falls away.

And then we just serve it like that, with a bit of apple ketchup.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Warren Butchers is a butcher in Cornwall.

And to have seen this place was spectacular.

It really blew my mind.

It's like a little piece of heaven in Cornwall.

They're sending some of the best restaurants in London amazing beef and pigs.

And you know, they process Tom's Mangalitsa pigs.

This is, like, the best butcher's I've seen.

I mean, look at the belly.

I like these little pork chunkies.

Well, these are funny, eh?

Looks like puff... >> ADAMS: Dissection of a Wellington.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, puff pastry.

And these sausages here look so, so perfect.

>> ADAMS: And they're all done in house.

Hey what's a... what's a Lanson sausage?

>> IAN WARREN: It's our most old-fashioned sausage we do.

Old-fashioned recipe, so we use all our rare breed pork, off the shoulder, the belly, salt and pepper.

And we use a proper bread rusk, so very softly textured.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Nice.

So it kind of, like, keeps all the moisture in, too.

>> WARREN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Oh, Tom, look how amazing these double lamb chops look.

>> BLOOMFIELD: This is a really sexy shop, it's...

When you see a butcher shop, and everything's just...

I mean, like... Food should be like... looking at it should be like you're looking at a perfect jewel.

Everything's sharp.

When I look at food, that's attractive, it's like you hone in on it.

Like, you're attracted to the most attractive thing.

You go through the steaks, and you're like, "No, no, (gasps) oh!

"♪ Ah.

♪ "Perfect.

"That one there.

That one's got my name on it."

This is an amazing shop.

I mean, look at all this stuff.

Smoked knuckle.

Look at that.

You just can't find that in New York.

You wouldn't be able to just come to a little butcher like this and get tripe like this.

This is, like, a smoked gammon joint.

I mean, look how sexy that looks.

This is exciting, Tom.

Faggots.

I grew up eating these.

But these look delicious.

Look at this.

Blood sausage.

You know, I used to eat this just like this with my granddad.

Straight from the fridge, no frying.

>> ADAMS: No nothing?

>> BLOOMFIELD: No, no, it's good cold.

Cold black pudding.

>> ADAMS: Yeah?

>> BLOOMFIELD: That's really good.

This is cool.

This is great pudding.

That's just oats, right?

>> ADAMS: That's oats, yeah.

You crumble them up, and you know pan fry them, and they're really nice, cripsy.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Do they get crispy?

>> ADAMS: They're really good, yeah, you'll like it.

>> BLOOMFIELD: That's super cool.

Oh, my gosh, we should get some of these.

I mean, you just wish you would have, like, a grill right here, you know, just kind of grill your meat.

That ribeye looks good, too.

>> ADAMS: Yeah, this ribeye's great.

But what we're going to see in a minute is everything else.

What he picks out for the restaurants, you know, for us as well, is just outrageous.

>> BLOOMFIELD: It's like a VIP room then?

>> ADAMS: I think it is the VIP room.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I've never been a VIP before.

>> ADAMS: Oh, yeah.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I'm pretty excited to go see what he's got.

>> ADAMS: Yeah, it's going to be amazing.

Should we go up and see them?

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, let's check it out.

>> WARREN: So this is our main quarters chiller.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Cool.

>> WARREN: So everything you see in here is full carcass.

And it's all bought from the farmers.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Oh, my gosh.

This is, like, more valuable than gold.

>> WARREN: Tom gets quite excited when he comes back.

>> ADAMS: Yeah, a little bit too excited, actually.

>> BLOOMFIELD: It looks so delicious.

The color of the fat.

>> WARREN: So this is what you'll get from the grass feed down here-- natural slow growth.

What you'll find is in the winter, when some cattle will be indoors, this fat will be white, not that yellow creamy color.

That's going to have the sweetness of the fat in it.

What you find with cattle that have been indoors is the fat does go white, and it does die off.

What we say is we want actually our farmers to... how they breed and fatten cattle, we want flesh first, fat later.

Because what you don't want is old fat.

What you want is you want the animal to get to a size, and then finish well.

That's why, you know, we're very grass... you know, grass-fed for the natural flavor.

If you have beef that's grain-fed, what you'll find is you get great texture in the meat.

You'll get fat globules through the meat.

And that fat will have been in the meat for a long time, because it's basically an obese animal.

Because fat is basically dead muscle.

What we try and do is we have our beef outdoors on the grass so they're moving around, they're relaxed, they're chilled, everything like that.

That to me is where it's had natural growth, natural flavors put into it, not artificial.

>> BLOOMFIELD: It's like I've died and gone to heaven.

Some people like hugging trees.

I want to hug these sides of beef.

So, so beautiful.

I could have spent...

I could have camped there.

I could have got, like, a little... what do you call those?

Sleeping bags.

You know, and just... look up.

You know, spend the night and just... could watch it age.

This is probably the biggest and most perfect meat rooms I've ever seen, really.

I mean, it's... >> WARREN: All right.

So this is our dry aging fridge.

This is a special fridge.

We're running this on about 74% humidity.

And this is Tom's Mangalitsa.

>> BLOOMFIELD: This is really beautiful.

>> ADAMS: It looks nicely finished.

I mean, this is, like... >> BLOOMFIELD: It's like Wagyu, isn't it?

I mean, they're just spectacular, aren't they?

I mean it must be like Christmas every time you break open a new pig.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I love pork as much as you do.

>> ADAMS: I know you love pork.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And this is, like, my favorite sausage to make.

>> ADAMS: This is, like, the ultimate pig dish.

>> BLOOMFIELD: It is, because you're using, like, the whole animal.

I mean, look how beautiful that looks.

>> ADAMS: It's a really nice looking pork.

>> BLOOMFIELD: So I'm just going to kind of turn open this, which is really easy to do.

>> ADAMS: You have to be careful not to nick through the skin.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, I mean, you don't want to really nick it, but if you do, it's not going to make that much difference, because we're going to tie it into the cheesecloth.

So it's not like the sausage is going to ooze out the side.

>> ADAMS: Yeah.

>> BLOOMFIELD: You can see I'm just kind of pulling back, right?

And then just keep going around.

Like this.

So you just pull it back down and cut through it.

So that's the pig sock.

Do you want to help me stuff?

Do you want to kind of shove that in there?

Yeah, that's it.

>> ADAMS: You want to get it really tight in there.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, exactly.

>> ADAMS: You don't want any pockets, right?

>> BLOOMFIELD: Now, we don't want holes.

Then it's all...

I don't know, it's going to steam.

This, you know... you want this kind of jampacked.

>> ADAMS: Yeah.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Okay.

So yeah, I just kind of, like, make this nice and tight, so if there's any seepage, it doesn't seep.

So then I just kind of, like, tie it up like this.

Make sure it's all nice and... >> ADAMS: Yeah.

>> BLOOMFIELD: ...tight.

>> ADAMS: And that's just going to keep it all intact when you poach it.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, exactly.

And then I get some string.

I don't like to tie it too tight, you know, because then it's...

I don't know.

It just gets a little bit... a bit to... you know, indents the meat too much, and it doesn't look as attractive.

You know, a lot of people have different experiences with food.

You know, like these pigs trotters, and just the funky stuff.

And I just don't think that they've ever had it right.

I remember the first time that I had pigs trotter.

And my mother got given them.

And she took them home, and she cooked them all day.

The smell permeated through the house, and it wasn't a good smell.

She hadn't cooked them long enough, so they were like this, you know?

>> ADAMS: Oh, right.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And so they weren't unctuous and sticky.

>> ADAMS: Oh, no.

>> BLOOMFIELD: And so we picked them up, and we literally was like... You know, and there was no meat on them!

>> ADAMS: Oh, man.

>> BLOOMFIELD: So my dad was like, "I suppose we're off to the chippy then," you know?

So we went and got some chips.

But... >> ADAMS: But this might... this is karma.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, this is not my mom's pig trotter.

>> ADAMS: You're repaying that.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Well, poor woman, she never cooked them again.

I'm going to cook this baby for like, five hours.

>> ADAMS: Yeah.

You need to really break it down, right?

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, yeah.

Get that knuckle sticky.

>> ADAMS: Yeah, you don't want a chewy trotter.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I love that sound.

So I chilled this just until it's chilled all the way through, you know?

Just make sure you get all of those nooks and crannies.

>> ADAMS: Yeah, you don't want any leakage.

BLOOMFIELD: Yeah.

ADAMS: It's a nice thing.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah.

See, you can't beat this dish, you know?

it's kind of... we're using everything, you know?

The skin, we're using inside the hock, we're using the whole pig sock.

I mean, how cool is that, to be able to, like, treat the animal and just, you know, treat it with respect?

Mmm, this is so good, Tom.

>> ADAMS: So you've got a bit of cabbage.

>> BLOOMFIELD: Yeah, bit of cabbage, bit of kale, bit of carrots.

And some grain mustard, which are going to go really well with the pork.

Delicious.

Look at that.

>> ADAMS: Oh.

That is a thing of beauty.

>> BLOOMFIELD: I think more and more people really want to know where their food comes from.

We have a responsibility as chefs to make sure that we're honest, and we're putting the best product forward.

And cook it in the most amazing way.

You have to have a close, intimate relationship with any producer, whether it be vegetables or meat.

You've got to trust them, for one.

You have to know what they're saying is the truth.

It also helps that you can go see them, that you can go visit farms.

The last thing you want to do is do business with somebody you're not sure about.

It's nice whan you make, like, the connection with a butcher or a farmer.

You know, you both have the same freaky passion burning somewhere deep inside to make things better.