I first heard about Cochon US Tour in a casual conversation - about a year or so ago. For some bizarre inexplicable reason, I initially thought it was some kind of a music festival. Ha! Thankfully, curiosity made me look it up on Twitter and I started to follow @COCHON555. What I got was tons of tweets about …. no! not music…… but PORK!

I was hooked. I wanted to know more. I wanted to be a part of this pork-laden experience. Further google-searching made me realize that this is a traveling experience - traveling from city to city, one action-packed-weekend at a time, bringing amazing pork-themed eats and treats to the cities near me and you. And bingo! New York city was the first stop on their 2015 tour!

COCHON555 is an interesting name for the tour, huh? Did you know that Cochon means “domestic pig”? The 555 stands for 5 chefs, 5 pigs and 5 winemakers - as they come together to create important and memorable experiences in each city on the tour. The tour is geared towards spreading the knowledge on preserving heritage breed pigs. It connects ranchers (raising heritage breed pigs) with chefs (known for nose to tail approach in cooking). And they all come together to bring a heritage pork dining experience to enthusiasts (like me) at the dinner table.

I was fascinated to learn that heritage breed pigs come from bloodlines going back hundreds of years when livestock was raised on multi-use open pasture farms. Because of their lifestyle and inherent genes, different breeds became known for variety of characteristics including rich and hearty taste of their meat, distinct marbling, bacon flavors and creamy fat. Today these breeds still carry excellent qualities, but many are not suited for commercial farming practices. So they are in danger of being lost forever. Creating demand for these pigs (by eating them) can help farmers afford to raise them. Heck! I’m in!

This past weekend was the New York city stop on the COCHON555 2015 tour. The main foodie event on Sunday involved a culinary competition and walk-around tastings offered by some of the biggest names in New York city’s culinary scene. Not one to enjoy walk-around tastings anymore, I signed up for an intimate and epic dinner on Friday at Root & Bone NYC to kick-off the weekend with five top-notch female chefs and wines of Germany. Elizabeth Falkner (celebrity chef)/ Leah Cohen (Pig and Khao)/ Missy Robbins and Mame Sow (The Cecil) were all in the Root & Bone kitchen along with host and chef Janine Booth that night. It was a 5 course dinner celebrating the nose through tail delights of a whole hog. Each chef prepared a course giving us a fabulous insight into their individual approach to food and their unique styles of cooking.

I loved the intimacy of the venue, I loved meeting other foodies, and most importantly I loved meeting these 5 dynamic chefs in person. They were all so friendly and down-to-earth. You could tell that they were having a blast whilst cooking together - charging the atmosphere with utter excitement. The highlight of my evening was when chef Elizabeth Falkner came over to personally serve me one of the courses! Moi?!!! Oh, boy! this must be heaven!

Did you know that, Root & Bone is famous for their fried chicken? As soon as our private event was wrapping up around 9:30PM, I could see lines forming outside…. lines of eager diners dying to get their hands on the star of the menu. Since fried chicken did not fit into the COCHON555 theme, I guess I will just have to visit Root & Bone again!

COCHON555 | http://cochon555.com
Root & Bone, New York city | http://www.rootnbone.com