When I was a kid, the National Pork Board launched a long-running ad campaign.
“Pork. The Other White Meat.”
Like “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner” and “The Incredible, Edible Egg,” it was part of a wave of advertising crafted to counteract the growing medical consensus that the average American diet, laden with animal fats and cholesterol, might have something to do with the nation’s heart disease problem.
But in my house, we did not need to be encouraged to eat more pork. On my mother’s side, the vinegary tang of Eastern North Carolina barbecue was the only thing that could rival fresh seafood. On my father’s side, Pernil—a traditional Puerto Rican slow-roasted pork shoulder—was king.
Yet when I think back on it, gathering around to roast a whole pig or for Pernil at the holidays was more of an occasion. Much more common, the dominant pork memory of my youth: pork chops.
Both my parents worked, sometimes multiple jobs. Neither considered themselves great cooks. But frying some pork chops or throwing them on the grill? Comparatively easy and deeply satisfying. My father, one of eight kids raised in the Bronx, hated to see anything wasted. When you thought you had thoroughly finished a pork chop, he would pick it up and extract every last morsel of meat, cracking the bone to get at the marrow.
Pork chops at home are pretty rare these days. My wife doesn’t like eating anything off of a bone. So on nights out, over the last few months, I’ve recently been sampling some of the city’s best pork chops. Great for my health? I’m not a doctor. But one of the most delicious little projects in which I’ve engaged since emerging from years of vegetarianism? Absolutely.
Serious local steakhouses don’t give the humble pork chop short shrift.
At KAU over at Revolution Mill, you can not only get their bone-in grilled chop when you dine in, you can get some to take home and make yourself at their butcher market. Good luck resisting the temptation to try your hand at it at home once you’ve had their version.
At Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar over at the Shoppes at Friendly Center, the double thick pork rib chop is served with sautéed apples and jicama (a sort of Mexican turnip) and a creole-mustard glaze. As good as any steak on the menu — and when you order it, the kitchen knows you ordered with intention.
But for my money, you’re just not going to do better than the Green Valley Grill’s wood-fire grilled porterhouse pork chop with whole grain mustard-chili butter, Greek roasted potatoes, and asparagus.
Would my mom and dad roll their eyes at some of these fancy glazes and flavored butters? Might they prefer the old school, no-frills and no-nonsense deliciousness of the fried pork chop at Pantry Fried Chicken on West Gate City Blvd?
Perhaps. But my dad would have sucked the marrow from every one of them.
