Bonnie: Millennials — like my culinary offspring — only know pork as “the other white meat,” that is the incredibly lean meat with a fat content similar to chicken. Seems that when chicken moved into the number one spot as America’s favorite in the ‘80s, the pork producers began producing lower-fat hogs to get into the competition.

That is all fine and good — if you know how to cook lean pork. Most home cooks don’t, resulting in something more like shoe leather than moist meat. Lean pork should be cooked until medium, so the internal temperature is no more than 150 degrees F.

But better yet, when you want to and can splurge, consider Snake River Farms (SRF) Kurobuta pork, tasting like the juicy tender marbled pork of decades ago. Think a pork version of Kobe beef. Kurobuta (Japanese black hog), which comes from Berkshire hogs, is celebrated in Japan for many reasons, especially its marbling, superior taste and texture, according to the SRF website. That company now produces an American version.

Receiving a rack for testing, I planned a dinner party around the roast. (Who could eat a seven-pound roast by herself?) And I planned it for my birthday, which just happened to fall on the same day as a one of the restaurant tours I conducted in New Haven at the Festival of Arts & Ideas.

Last stop on the tour was Union League Cafe, one of Connecticut’s best, according to various reader’s polls in Connecticut Magazine: best restaurant, most romantic restaurant, best French restaurant and so much more. Anyway, the restaurant’s sexy French chef and owner Jean Pierre Vuillermet had just finished demonstrating crêpes suzette to the participants and we were chatting while participants indulged in their crêpes, organic dessert wine from Domaine Arena and homemade (well, restaurant-made), decadent chocolate truffles. The festival does conduct fabulous tasting tours!

Anyway, Jean Pierre and I — as foodies often do — started talking food. Once I learned that Union League served Kurobuta pork, I asked for cooking advice, as I’d never handled this pork beforeTB_Arts_Jean-Pierre.jpg and hadn’t yet decided exactly how I was cooking the roast that evening. This is what I did:

My Pork Roast with Jean Pierre’s input

Trim the excess fat from the roast. Rub the roast with a blend of Dijon mustard and Frieda’s Original Garlic Delight — a new item from Frieda’s available in a tub in the produce aisle — or any coating you’d like on your pork. Season with lots of dried oregano, and salt and pepper to taste. Place on a bed of mirepoix (chopped onions, carrots and celery – the holy trinity of French cooking).

Roast the bone-in rib roast at 500 degrees F for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 325 degrees F and cook about 15 to 20 minutes a pound. Remove from the oven when the thermometer reaches 145 degrees F, and let rest for at least 20 minutes before slicing it into pork chops and serving atop a bed of fresh oregano. The temperature will rise to about 155 degrees as it sits, and your pork will be done to perfection. (The FDA says to cook it to 150 degrees F, but both Jean Pierre and I think that pork will be a bit overcooked.)

The result? Succulent. Sensational. As my dinner guests began to devour the roast, all that could be heard were oohs and aaahs.

Nutrition Note — There is no current documented nutrition data on Kurobuta pork, at least that I could find after calling the Pork Board (the organization that represents the industry) and Snake River Farms (SRF). The current data is on lean pork. Obviously this pork contains more fat — but how much? If you know, will you share it with us?

SRF Recipes — My advice is not to use SRF recipes as they were designed for chefs and not always clear. My suggestion to SRF, now that they are offering their pork and other products to consumers, would be to hire a food professional who works with consumer recipes to update and standardize the recipes on their site.

Bryan: It actually became a bit of a problem; the Snake River Farms pork roast had been sitting in our freezer for months. Making ice cream is a bit of a hobby in my house, but with so much pork filling up the place, there was no longer enough freezer space to store the machine’s cylinder overnight (an essential part of the process). It wasn’t that I didn’t want to eat the pork, it was just such an enormous portion that I couldn’t justify using it without a substantial gathering. Thankfully, my excuse came when a good friend who had moved to Palo Alto, Calif., came back to Atlanta for a week; we just had to have a dinner party. There was brief consideration amongst our group to gather at a nearby restaurant, but I quickly jumped in to say that we should all dine at my house and that I would be happy to cook instead. I just couldn’t wait to make ice cream again and I was not going to let that beautiful pork roast sit any longer on ice.

Bonnie has mentioned how she cooked the pork roast whole, but I did not have the appropriate preparation and cooking time to properly pull this off. There were a large number of dishes to prepare and my oven couldn’t be monopolized for the entire time, nor did I plan ahead far enough to cook the enormous roast thoroughly. Instead of cooking the entire piece, I cut what seemed like an endless supply of individual 1 1/2-inch chops off of the roast and laid them in a roasting pan. I poured a heavily spiced mixture based on mustard and maple syrup over the chops, gave them a few topical slashes and prepped my broiler. The chops developed a beautiful crust, quickly browning and caramelizing under the intense heat of the top burner. I flipped the chops after a few minutes to get the same effect on both sides. The pork was finished at 375 degrees F, roasting in the sealed crust of maple goodness.

I sautéed some red peppers with hot sauce, combined them with a diced mango and pulsed the mixture in the food processor with some garlic and oil to create sauce for the meat. The Kurobuta was moist and delicious. The single roast served our entire party of 12 with ample leftovers. Quality ingredients make cooking a joy and Snake River Farms has bred and served an outstanding product.

Eric: I guess once you’ve worked with, prepared and have eaten high-quality meats, you take for granted the fact that other people haven’t experienced the taste of such products. From a young age, I’ve always known the effect a dried piece of meat can have on self-indulgence, and fortunately throughout my cooking experiences, I’ve dried out my fair share of steak, chicken and pork to the point where I now know what a well-cooked piece of meat should taste like.

I feel like I could be a screenplay writer for a porn movie when I write this, but the experience I encountered when tasting the Kurobuta pork goes something like this: “It is fatty yet tender, and nearly melts in your mouth without even chewing.” When I think about it, most pork should taste as good as this, and it wasn’t until I read my mother’s “Bite” that I understood why. On average, most pork is so tasteless and dry. Although the Kurobuta pork is pricier than most (and a splurge for the average meal), think about the principles involved the next time you go to the supermarket: Your meat should have fat, and lots of it, because taste is proportionally linked to fat. If you want to save on calories and fat, lay off the junk food and the soda, and instead direct your effort toward a meal that will truly satisfy your desire.