The good and the not so of Orlando’s culinary scene were highlighted in national press over the weekend. 

The Ravenous Pig was cited in a Wall Street Journal article about “modern meateries” written by Joshua Ozersky. The Pig was one of 20 restaurants noted for featuring meat — pork, beef, lamb, veal “and various birds” — in a contemporary way. The article seemed to distinguish these restaurants from the more staid and stereotypical steakhouses of yore.

The Ravenous Pig was mentioned alongside such notable restaurants as Cochon in New Orleans, the Publican and Girl & the Goat in Chicago, and New York’s M. Wells Steakhouse, which features a bone-in burger.

While WSJ readers were learning about Central Florida’s cutting edge cuisine, the New York Times was perpetuating the stereotype that all we have to eat in Orlando are turkey legs. In a front page, above the fold story, Brooks Barnes gave detailed information about how the turkey legs sold at the various Disney parks have become a foodstuff phenomenon. I’ll admit that I groaned a bit when I saw the story. I’ve been fighting for years to tell the rest of the country that Central Florida has good food. And I specifically have said on numerous occasions, “We don’t all go around eating turkey legs.”

Still, it was an amusing story, even if it did set the cause back a bit. Best line, in response to someone’s assertion that eating a turkey leg was a healthful food option: “Maybe if fudge is the comparison.”

At least the photo accompanying the story, which included a woman who had either just taken a huge bite and was covering her mouth for the camera or was about to hurl, was taken at Disneyland in Anaheim and not Orlando. Small favors.

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