Meatopia is part of the Pebble Beach Food and Wine Festival and is hosted by Esquire Food Editor Josh Ozersky. Pebble Beach Food and Wine describes Meatopia as
An informal evening on the beach where nationally renowned chefs play with fire as they grill, roast, broil, steam and barbeque all things MEAT. Cocktails, Brews and Wine keep the night going as we celebrate the Carnivore inside us.
California Kurobuta made it's debut at Meatopia this April with two whole roasting pigs, grilled over open flame by the Pig Wizard himself, Jonathan Roberts.
The Pig Wizard's day started at 4am when he and his crew prepared the fire and seasoned the roasters with a proprietary Pig Wizard pork rub. Our son, Thomas, joined us from northern California. Jack, Thomas, and I arrived before the event opened to help prep the side dishes. In addition to the pork, the Pig Wizard made "pork corn", which is light and crunchy like pop corn, but made from lightly sweetened and salted popped pork rind. Needless to say, it was also extremely popular.
As the party began in the evening, we all worked on filling the tasting plates with savory chunks of pork and accompaniments. We enjoyed talking to people as they came by our table to try the pork. The connection between the farmers (us) and the final product made this event really special for the guests.
There was a lot of media attention; huge cameras were everywhere. We realized one of the photographers was with SF Weekly when we saw a photo of our pork featured in this SF Weekly Meatopia article.
Chefs from around the world presented their best meat dishes. The chef at the table next to us spit-roasted a whole sturgeon. It was at least four feet long, impressive and really delicious, cooked to perfection. We tasted a little of everything and there was nothing there that was not wonderful.