What you're looking at isn't a slab of bacon, it's Portland meat maven Olympic Provisions' latest porky creation. At last night's Feast Portland High Comfort event, we passed by OP's table and were stopped in our tracks by a pile of pig that goes beyond the standard charcuterie spread. So just what was this marvel? Olympic Provisions owner Elias Cairo described the nearly two year-long process to us:
Cairo says is the third such pig that's seen the light of day. He says you see this thing all over Spain, where people "turn this thing into almost art," by hanging and weighing pigs from certain parts, resulting in "crazy beautiful, Dalí-esque things."
Given the level of awesomeness on display here, we couldn't help but ask Cairo about any potential Olympic Provisions New York expansion plans (we've heard rumors!). Cairo loves New York and says "we always talk about it," but that he wants to focus on production in PDX and that in maybe "three or four years" he would "open up another Olympic Provisions restaurant."
As for taking his craft across the country? "I think it would be difficult, I will always cure my meat, probably, in Oregon.