no antibiotics

Last Monday, Brenda Langton hosted a special buffet at Spoonriver, her Minneapolis restaurant. This event, co-sponsored by the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming, featured a delicious selection of naturally raised meats provided by local farmers Mike and Colleen Braucher of Sunshine Harvest Farm, and Doug and Connie Karstens of the Lamb Shop. While the food was a glorious celebration of spring, the purpose of the evening was dead serious: to discuss the problem of antibiotic resistance and the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA).

Porketta is one of those recipes that you shove in the oven and forget about. The meat emerges tender and succulent. It serves a bunch of people, and the leftovers – sliced high and piled on crusty baguette, or slathered with bbq sauce on a soft, whole wheat bun, or diced and simmered in ragu for pasta – make things easy on the cook.

It’s one of those recipes that came to the Iron Range with Italian miners, was adopted by Czech neighbors and Norwegian farmers, and is now found on menus throughout the Twin Cities (and given an uptempo spin).