If You're in New Orleans This Weekend

The SFA is advertising the Cochon Ball on its blog:

If we understand correctly, Chef Donald Link will be cooking a pig or three, with his grill set up behind one of the goals of a mock foosball game, laid out a green at the center of the Brickyard. While Link cooks, 26 foosball players will, taking their inspiration from the tabletop game, slide and summersault while kicking a green, inflatable ball – representing the apple commonly stuck in the mouth of a roasted suckling pig – around the field, trying to score points. After a couple hours of kicking, everyone will eat pig. Along the way, Meehan hopes to catalyze conversations about how food events engender community and about how local foods matter to local people. Wacky? Yes. Fun? Definitely. You should go.

Details:
January 17, 2009
Location: The Brickyard, Bywater, 3000 block of Chartres Street.
Foosball starts at noon or so
Feed starts at 3:00 or so
Admission is $5 or so
Questions: alisounm@gmail.com

Musing on pigs, I found a great how-to guide for cooking cochon de lait on this site from Texas A&M. Warning: It includes pictures likely to make sensitive vegetarians nauseous. But, as you can see, the flash-creations of pigs hanging on rotisseries in homemade cooking sheds are a delight. And the author's description of this joyous Louisiana ritual is spot on:

Cochon de Lait is basically a cajun pig roast of a whole young pig. The pig is slow roasted for 6 to 12 hours. That is what makes a Cochon de Lait an event rather than just cooking a meal. It's an extended "male bonding", "story telling", "bull shooting", "beverage of your choice drinking", "fire tending" event!

Like any good time in the South, it's probably not a success unless somebody gets hurt.



(That's a map of Acadiana above.)