About 60 diners from across the state gathered at Lantern, a pan-Asian restaurant in Chapel Hill, for their first taste of Ossabaw, a first course of tender strips of braised pork ear, sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Chuck Bassett of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy of Pittsboro, the beneficiary of the dinner, thanked them for their support.

"It's oxymoronic to think that eating a rare breed is actually saving it, but it's true," Bassett said.

Preserving the Ossabaw could be important not just for the pig and for pork lovers, but also for North Carolina farmers who are looking for a new cash crop to replace tobacco.

The Ossabaw breed is descended from some of the 700 animals left along the Southeast coast by Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto in 1539. The idea was that the hogs would give future colonists a ready supply of meat.

And what meat! The swine left behind were Ibericos, which Spaniards let graze on acorns and then cured into their famous Jámon Iberico, a flavorful pink ham with droplets of fat that makes pork lovers swoon. (Today, Jámon Iberico sells for about $50 a pound in Europe; sorry, you can't get it here.)

Although many of the Ibericos in America eventually died out or assimilated with dominant barnyard breeds over the years, some Ibericos remained genetically pure. These are the Ossabaws, whose name comes from the remote Georgia barrier island where the breed thrived in the wild for centuries.

So writes Peter Kaminsky, New York Times food writer and author of the forthcoming book "Pig Perfect: Encounters with Remarkable Swine" (Hyperion). But just as Kaminsky discovered that his "perfect pig" might already be living in America, he also discovered that the state of Georgia was trying to rid itself of the small, wiry-haired feral pig, because it was destroying loggerhead turtle nests on Ossabaw.

Saving the pig

Some of the 200 or so remaining Ossabaws were saved by researchers at the University of Missouri who were studying the breed because of its "thrifty gene." This gene, which some humans share, allows the animal to convert food to fat quickly -- good in lean times, but a quality that in times of plenty leads to obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

Meanwhile, at N.C. A&T State University in Greensboro, professor Charles Talbott had become a specialist in the small-scale production of upscale pork. With federal and state funding and connections with gourmet pork producer Niman Ranch, he was helping former tobacco farmers make the switch to heritage hog breeds.

The Ossabaws intrigued him because the fat Ibericos produce is rich in oleic acid, the same fat in olive oil that promotes the production of HDL or "good" cholesterol. Maybe Ossabaws allowed to live outside and eat a healthy diet of acorns, peanuts and alfalfa would do the same.

So Talbott and Kaminsky went to the University of Missouri to fetch 27 Ossabaws, placing them with two breeders, Emile DeFelice in St. Matthews, S.C., and MacLean at her Cane Creek Farm in Mebane.

Going whole hog

A little more than a year later, MacLean has two lines of Ossabaws going, a purebred line with six sows, a boar and 15 9-month-olds and another line crossed with Farmers Hybrid, a traditional-size hog breed preferred by Niman Ranch, that has six sows and two boars.

One 9-month-old purebred and one 1-year-old crossbred were used for the fund-raising dinner in Chapel Hill. To use the whole of each animal, head to tail, was the goal of the four chefs -- hosts Andrea and Brendan Reusing of Lantern and visiting chefs Eric Tanaka and Gray Brooks (a Durham native) of Dahlia Lounge in Seattle.

In fact, the soup course was called head-to-tail dumplings in broth. "I tasted a cheek, definitely," MacLean said after biting into a dumpling.

The next course, lacquered pork belly, showed off the breed's wobbly, viscous fat. The dish got high marks from Ashley Christensen, the chef and general manager of Raleigh's Enoteca Vin, who scurried over from her restaurant for the special dinner.

"That was hands-down the best pork belly I have ever eaten. The lacquer was beautiful," she said. "We've done some test cooking with the Ossabaw, and I am interested and intrigued by the pig."

The fourth course featured the meat of the jowl and cheek in a spicy, crispy coating and was followed by a course of roast pork, seasoned with 12 spices and served with a pouch of glutinous rice flavored with a sweet Chinese sausage also made from Ossabaw.

Even the buckwheat crepes dessert got a touch of pork with its candied cracklings on the side.

"Every single bite of pork has been delicious," said Bo Ketner, a student at Duke University Law School. He had read Kaminsky's New York Times article about the Ossabaw and, having tasted real Iberian ham in Spain, wanted to try the American version. "I'm excited to know someone in Mebane is doing it."

Long growing time

For those not at the dinner, it could take a while to get a taste of Ossabaw. The practically wild pigs grow slower than traditional breeds, so it takes longer to get a hog to market. So far, MacLean has mostly been marketing her Ossabaws to restaurants in New York plus four in the Triangle: Magnolia Grill in Durham, Panzanella in Carrboro, and Crook's Corner and Lantern, both in Chapel Hill.

MacLean has made some Ossabaw sausage that she sells at Maple View Dairy and hopes to market at her booth at the Carrboro Farmers Market as well. But it is much too soon to anticipate the Ossabaw's true test of kinship with Iberico -- its ham. In Spain, these hams age two to five years. A woman from Kentucky is experimenting with curing an Ossabaw ham for MacLean, but it has only been a year so far.

"Stay tuned," MacLean told the eager eaters at the Ossabaw dinner.

Food editor Susan Houston can be reached at 812-4109 or shouston@newsobserver.com.