Despite the increasing popularity of beef, pork still carries the day in Hong Kong and the rest of China, with the average citizen consuming more pork here than in any other country except for Germany.
Chef Lee Keung of Island Shangri-La’s Summer Palace emphasizes the historical context of pork having the upper hand: “In traditional farming, pigs were kept to be eaten, while cows were used to plow the fields—and as the saying goes, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s premier food blogger Chaxiubao says he prefers pork to beef because of the endless variety it allows: “There are so many ways to prepare pork, especially in Chinese cuisine. It blends well with other ingredients, whereas beef is best served just standing on its own.”
Eighty percent of Hong Kong’s freshly slaughtered pork comes from the mainland (the rest is reared here), and for 50 years through a single monopoly importer, Ng Fung Hong. It was only as recently as 2007, when many blamed the latter for soaring pork prices, that Hong Kong and mainland authorities granted two other organizations the right to bring pigs across the border. At the same time, imports of frozen pork from overseas are on the rise.
Naturally, cha siu and siu yuk are the favorites at Chinese restaurants. Keung, a master of siu yuk, emphasizes the intense care that goes into the latter’s preparation. Pork belly is always used with equal parts lean meat and fat. Marination with salt and ginger is required for two hours, and then even roasting from medium to low to high temperatures at different intervals, so that the skin dries first and then bubbles and crackles later.
At Western restaurants meanwhile, the last two years has seen Iberian pork establishing itself as the hottest item in the hog world. A black breed with distinctly large ears, the Iberian pig is bred through a tradition dating back to the 19th century; it normally feeds on acorns, but is generally free to roam extensive oak forests and consume nutrient-rich herbs, grass and nuts. Win of Olivier Pacific imports Iberian pork in the form of both raw meat and cured ham—the latter from 5J Sanchez Romero Carvajal, suppliers to the king of Spain. He says its popular taste comes down to the pigs’ acorn diet: “The conversion of the acorns into oleic acid in their fat makes them healthy, and makes the meat highly marbled.”
A confluence of local tradition and new Western trends can be found in the Iberian pork dishes by Amber’s Richard Ekkebus. Although paired with celeriac and black winter truffle coulis, the quartet of pork loin, belly, chin and cheek is prepared with Chinese-influenced methods. “With centuries of dealing with the pig,” he says, “nothing beats the Chinese sophistication of preparing pork.”