No matter how hard he tried, Oliver Woolley just couldn’t stay out of the big business. Here, he talks about what lured him back:
“My whole life I was told not to go into the pork business. Both my grandfather and my dad were in the pig industry, so after college I moved to London to work in finance. Of course I couldn’t sit at a desk for another minute, so I left for culinary school and then assisted at Fergus Henderson’s St. John, where I learned about heritage breeds and European butchery. I remember the first time I tasted cured, smoked lardo from a Mangalitsa pig. And secreto, a tiny ‘secret’ cut from Spain’s Ibérico pigs. They were obscenely good, and I thought, ‘Maybe people would be into this in California.’ So as fate would have it, here I am, back in the pig business.”
Oliver Woolley is one of 25 L.A. “Food Lovers” featured in our November, 2014 Food Lovers Guide on newsstands now
