Serendipitous Alchemy

Edited by Marina Crouse

The Tide Brought Me Here

Tyler Potter circles the commissary kitchen with unmistakable enthusiasm. He swiftly chops through a hefty lamb shoulder, deposits the meat into a Cambro, then wipes down the area to maintain his immaculate prep space. Unwanted segments are deftly removed from the cubes, and the chef is keen to keep his trimming precise, demonstrating reverence for the high-end protein with which he’s working. Folk covers of Pink Floyd drift from his iPad and serve as today’s soundtrack for Lamb Merguez. The harissa-spiced sausage is being prepped for an upcoming private event on behalf of The Swimming Pig, Tyler’s blossoming one-man charcuterie business.

Producing an alabaster slab from the meat cooler adjacent to his cutting board, Tyler makes a smooth slice about one centimeter from the bottom. He reveals that he’s removing the skin from pork fat, which he gets from Grey Barn in Chilmark. With every step of the process, he exhibits a vast knowledge of charcuterie and enjoyment for the chemistry of it.

“I use it to add more fat to the lamb shoulder. For a proper sausage, it requires a certain ratio of lean to fat,” he begins, “because natural lamb shoulder doesn’t have that, I add pork fat to it to balance out that ratio. If I didn’t add the fat it would be really grainy and undesirable.” 

As he adds the last sections of fat in with the lamb, Tyler nods approvingly, his Swimming Pig hat - camo patterned and bearing a hog with a shark fin tied to its back - bobbing for a moment.

“It’s just so creamy and delicious and fucking sexy!” He proclaims as he quickly transitions to weighing out the spices for the mixture.

One year ago, Tyler would not have imagined he’d end up here. Like many folks in the restaurant industry, he was laid off from his manager position at an artisanal meat processing facility as a consequence of the pandemic. The sudden halt to his career, compounded by painful changes in his personal life, prompted Tyler to turn to the ferry. 

“My friend that I worked with in Cambridge years ago hit me up last summer when I was in a tight spot. So I moved here only knowing him last July. He was my sole connection.” he explains.

Trying to acquaint himself with the island mid-COVID was no easy task, either. With few community events occurring and many establishments closed down, Tyler notes that he had to “slowly but surely” find his way, working for a catering company and a cafe, “just figuring it out.” Eventually, however, he knew that the reset button afforded by the world hitting pause could not be wasted.

“I just kind of decided I don’t want to work for anyone anymore. So I started my own thing, and that plugged me into the community.” 

No Rage Against the Machine

Tyler launched The Swimming Pig this past March, applying the production style of his previous employer, including systems and operational logistics, to his independent business endeavor.

“Literally the exact same flow, methodology, all of it, except about 4.999 million dollars cheaper.”

While the lamb mixture chills in the fridge, Tyler begins assembling his “baby,” a one-horsepower meat grinder that processes 13 pounds per minute. Tyler describes it as the biggest and highest commercial-grade equipment he could get “while being able to be mobile.” The Swimming Pig acts as a service: clients provide the meat and products and Tyler provides charcuterie that is far greater than the sum of its parts. A major part of this magic, he explains, is the ability to produce in his clients’ commercial kitchens. 

“Being mobile, I can go produce here. I can only sell at certain restaurants. (It) enables me to touch a lot of heads and integrate with a lot of the community, instead of being centralized.”

While becoming further entrenched in the community, accumulating inquiries and turning heads with his sleek yet cheeky logo, Tyler has started to notice distinct differences between his old and new homes. Coming from a “notoriously cold city,” he finds the Vineyard “very communal and welcoming” and notices a sense of “civility and humanity” not often found elsewhere. Whether it’s the food service, agriculture, or hospitality communities on the island, there seems to be a collaborative spirit, a nuanced version of ‘communal.’

“Everyone has their kind of niche, and everyone’s supportive of one another’s endeavors. All of them are successful in their own right and there’s plenty of room to eat at the table.” 

Tyler lists several examples of this trait in practice. There’s the chorizo he makes for the El Gato Grande taco truck in Vineyard Haven. He’s also made sausages with Sweet Reaper, a hot sauce concocted by Nathan Gould, chef at the Beach Plum Inn and co-founder of MV Smokehouse fish spreads. There’s also a reciprocating vibe on the island, Tyler insists. He speaks with gratitude about the times his sausages have been featured and promoted on the island, like with El Gato Grande’s Fourth of July Weekend pop-up. For each realm of the Vineyard culinary scene he has entered - restaurants, farm stands, food trucks, private events - Tyler has an anecdote of support. In fact, when chef and owner of The Sweet Life, Hal Ryerson, needed dish washing assistance on Mother’s Day, Tyler didn’t hesitate to jump in.

“Everyone scratches each other’s backs,” he adds while toasting the spices for his next sausage mixture, chicken garlic. 

Grog’s Prime Cuts

Charcuterie was something Tyler encountered often throughout his culinary career, though more so on the periphery. He points to an influential chef who exposed him to the intricacies of barbecue, whole animal butchery, and the sausage making process, as well as a few others who were practiced in French charcuterie. Yet it wasn’t until Tyler sought a change of pace from grueling and odd kitchen hours that he made the full switch to a charcuterie facility. Once he gained a more thorough understanding of the art in his new job, he was enthralled.

“I guess I really liked the accuracy and the end product. To learn about the craft of charcuterie and where it came from and why it exists, honestly, was really intriguing for me.” He raves as he begins the first of two grinds on the merguez concoction. Since the muscles originally used for sausage, such as shoulder or leg, are traditionally muscles of locomotion, he says, they require extra breakdown to work through connective tissue, sinew, and muscle fibers. 

Charcuterie is directly linked to human adaptation and survival, which fascinates Tyler to no end and has instilled in him profound respect for the practice.

“It was really built off of necessity. We survived through winters because of these preservation techniques of salting, smoking, curing, brining. Some would even say it’s what made us human. There’s fire, of course, but you left the meat over the fire overnight?” He smiles, shaking his head in amazement. “You’d be like ‘oh my God, the meat didn’t turn rotten! Oh my God, we can now eat this longer!’” 

While some might say there’s nothing appetizing about how the sausage is made, or that the meat grinder is an unglamorous process, the product Tyler creates is decidedly poetic. Like a cluster of bucatini or similarly thick noodles, the meat pours out of the grinder with delicate vibrance. The fragrance of the harissa and fennel, combined with the natural blush of the lamb, makes the mixture appear fresh and skillet-ready. And some of it will get cooked up in this phase, as Tyler always tests a small portion of the batch to make sure it’s balanced before casing. The sausage is at once elevated and primal.

“Thousands of years we’ve been doing these practices and to literally survive,” Tyler remarks, lamenting that industrialized meat processing has distanced people from the food they consume. “What they don’t realize is what it takes to make bacon and where that even comes from on a pig. It’s a lost art.” Tyler finds it odd how perspectives on meat and the desired cuts have switched over time, describing the early human societies that celebrated certain parts of the animals.

“The leaders of the tribe were getting the one heart, the one tongue, the one liver, as a sign of respect because there’s one! I mean, beef tongue is scary to the average person, but to me it’s gold. Smoked beef tongue sandwich would be delicious.” 

This is where, Tyler believes, The Swimming Pig can help people find the unsung heroes, the good stuff.

“I don’t know if I’m like, leading some charge here, but I want to make people aware that (charcuterie) exists for a reason. One of the aesthetics of The Swimming Pig is to bridge the gap between product and process.” The connotation of the word “charcuterie” has even evolved from survival mode to decadent snack. Tyler acknowledges that many people eat charcuterie their entire lives and don’t know much about how it was made. Most only see it as the finished product, so his goal is to “make people more aware of what their food is and where it comes from.”

The Pathos of Pâté

With a full Google Calendar and a motto of “say yes to everything,” the self-proclaimed “masochist” who thrives on busy-ness has clear ambitions for The Swimming Pig. First, Tyler has his sights set on continuing to build a foundation and “getting a good product out there.” Whole animal catering opportunities may arise in the fall, and many, many more collaborations likely await. 

“I didn’t really plan on being the meat guy.” Tyler confesses, “It’s something I enjoy, I do like the education, the aesthetics behind it. But that’s why it’s refreshing to work with these other chefs, too, it gives me a chance to actually cook and do something, not just this.”  

Make no mistake that Tyler has a passion for what has built his entire business, but he emphasizes, “I like to cook too. I like to cook fish, I like to cook vegetables!”

Having a property is a large part of the plan, eventually, particularly one that is conducive to a community butcher shop.

“Chops and sausages, European style, hanging salami, cheeses, and breads. You know, all the local stuff and make a grocery, deli, butcher shop type thing. That’s the endgame.” 

The twice-ground meat is now ready for casing. Tyler begins tubing the fine mixture through all-natural hog casing, then spins the segments in alternating directions to avoid unravelling. He states that sausage making can be equal parts technicality and feel, something he has developed through his full dedication to the craft. Perhaps this balance is one of the many contributions Tyler knows he adds to the proverbial table. 

“I have a skill set that is unique to this place and can be valuable.” he asserts, expressing a need for more folks in the food industry to cook with love and thoughtfulness. With a large population of visitors who are willing to pay for top-tier ingredients, Tyler speculates that they demand a higher caliber of food. They will, he says, recognize when a product is created with or without intent.

“I want to be a part of that intention.”

Whether it was the opportune timing of the Vineyard beckoning to him, his translatable charcuterie skills that this island happened to crave, or the funny way in which his connections with one MV vendor yield at least a dozen more, Tyler feels that he’s learned a bit about “how the universe works.”

“At one point I thought I’d lost everything. Now it’s turned into gaining so much.” 

He says the best way to describe the path to The Swimming Pig is “serendipitous,” providing him “such an interesting outlook of gratitude,” and reminding him to “just trust the process.” 

Serendipitous, yes, but Tyler was never one to sit back and let fate happen to him. He grinds.

@theswimmingpigmv can be found wading in the waters of North Tisbury Farm and Market, as well as various restaurants and food trucks on the island.

You can also learn to make sausage in one of Tyler’s classes! The next one is Thursday, August 5 at the Farm Institute in Edgartown.