Day 255

Rabbit Rillettes: Tonight I had the pleasure of attending one of the best food events I've ever been to, courtesy of the Foodtopia people from Asheville, NC (www.foodtopiansociety.com). I've visited Asheville several times, but I had no idea they had such a vibrant and creative food scene. If the goal of the Foodtopia Atlanta event was to gain attention for Asheville, they definitely succeeded. Lots of chefs and food purveyors from Asheville were in attendance, and I actually had a difficult time narrowing down what I wanted to blog about - there were several new foods for me to try.

Even though I ate lots of great food, I spotted one dish early on that I'd never experienced: rabbit rillettes. If you're not familiar with rillettes, it's an old-school French way of preparing meat that's similar to pate. Basically, it involved cooking meat in fat until it's soft enough to be shredded, then cooled with the fat to form a paste that can be spread on bread. It's one of my favorite things, and I was excited to find this version made with rabbit since I'd never tried it that way.

Appearance-wise, it was much different that other rillettes I've eaten, and it looked more like shredded pork than anything else. I noticed that some people were eating it on a piece of toasted bread with some condiments, but I ended up trying it a la carte. My first bite was really tasty - the shredded rabbit had an earthy, salty flavor that had just the right amount of fat content. If the idea of meat cooked in fat confit-style sounds like overkill, trust me - it's not. It isn't something that I can eat large amounts of, but this rabbit version was decadent and awesome.

Right after I tried this dish, I met the guy who owned the farm that the rabbit came from. I know the whole "farm to table" thing is super-trendy right now, but it was really cool to meet the guy who was responsible for raising the food that I ate.