french | toast

Chicago’s Green City Market kicked off its first winter market season with a “Snout to Tail” pork tasting on Saturday.

Chicago chefs – including Rick Bayless of Frontera Grill and Topolobampo and Paul Kahan of Blackbird, Avec and The Publican – showcased pork. Bayless offered gourmet tidbits of white pozole made with three different cuts of pork while Kahan stirred up pork stewed with mussels.

The tasting did the trick to “get the message out to the general public that we are a meat and cheese destination,” said Lyle Allen, executive director of the Green City Market. Shoppers often associate farmers markets with fruits, vegetables and flowers.

More than 1,000 people packed the second-floor gallery of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park over the course of the winter market debut. Farmers sold their wares at tables around the perimeter of the room while chefs offered samples of pork dishes at a ring of tables set up in the middle. The market will be open every other Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. until April 18th.

Sarah Stegner of the Prairie Grass Cafe said she had enough beans and Italian sausage on hand for the crowd. “I think the chefs caught wind that it was going to be a little crazy,” she said. “We did not run out of food.”

Stegner used the Green City Market vendors as sources for her ingredients. The beans came from Three Sisters Garden and the sausage was made from Liberty Farms pork shoulder.

At the Bristol table, shoppers munched on mini pork sandwiches. The black olive rolls held slices of a sausage-stuffed pork saddle poached in pork stock and finished with an orange aioli, said chef and partner Chris Pandel.

Colleen Rush, co-author of a forthcoming barbecue cookbook entitled “Low and Slow,” served pulled pork garnished with pickled onions and Lexington red slaw, for which she handed out a recipe.

“We love pigs, so it’s a natural fit,” Rush said.

The event drew regular market shoppers, such as Lakeview disability advocate Nora Handler.

“I come as often as I can. I’m really into the local food. My sister raises some of her own chickens and eggs,” Handler said. “Once you’ve tasted that and you’ve learned about just the greenness of it and the politics of food, you feel a lot better about who you’re supporting and what you’re eating,” Handler said.

“It’s great,” said Jill Niland, who lives near Lincoln Square. “I think they should have planned differently. [The museum has] an upstairs room; they could have put part of this upstairs. It’s too crazy. I’m afraid the regular farmer’s market vendors aren’t getting much business because there’s too many other crowds. But it’s a nice thing to do.”

The vendors appeared to have lots of business, however. Some ran out of several popular produce items, such as spinach, only two hours after the market opened. Allen said that almost all of the vendors were either sold out or nearly sold out when the market closed at 1 p.m.

Mike Bollinger of Heritage Prairie Market was selling fresh spinach, grown 35 miles west of Chicago under movable “hoop houses” that protect crops from the elements. Bollinger brought about 50 pounds of spinach to the market. A shopper snatched up the last half-pound bag only an hour and a half after the market opened.

Paula Haney of Hoosier Mama Pie Co. had also sold out of her most popular confection, Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie, by 10 a.m.

“Obviously, I did not expect so many people,” Haney said. “It’s great.”

This story originally appeared with a video component on the Medill News Service website.