It seems ridiculous to say so, but I can remember a time before pork belly.Which is to say, I can remember a time before every restaurant everywhere used the stuff like the 100% effective customer bait it is. I can remember when the primary pork delivery systems were chops and bacon and not much more–a time before guanciale, before jowls and trotters, before anyone knew the names of the farms from which their dinner had hailed.In the history of American gastronomy, the notion of eating the whole animal–of going at it nose-to-tail–is a new thing. Or rather, it’s the oldest thing in the world (the way everyone ate before their were restaurants on every corner and grocery stores on every block), but the appreciation of it is modern. The love of offal, of organ meats, the questing after unpopular cuts of beef like they were jewels and of breaking down pigs and deer and rabbits and cows into smaller and smaller constituent (and tasty) parts–these are all something that has only recently been made popular on a wide scale by a lot of very smart chefs and cooks, and they have all made our dining scene that much more vital, bloody and delicious.Which was why I was happy to see this little nugget pop up on the Twitter feed for Bastille Cafe earlier today:”Come and get the “Whole Beast” – check out the link below for details and let us know what you think!”I did just that–clicking through to a special page appended to Bastille’s website which offered all the details on the restaurant’s amazing looking “Whole Beast Feast.”They were thus:”The Whole Beast Feast is an extraordinary dining experience built on the age-old premise that whole is better than parts. Our chefs utilize various techniques to ensure that each cut is prepared properly. The suckling pig feast, for example, could include Roasted Pork Chops, Foil Roasted Saddle, Confit Shoulder Ravioli, Tete du Cochon, Picnic Ham Pave, Merguez Crepinettes, Sausage with Wild Fennel Seed, Cracklings with Creme Fraiche, ConfitTrotter “Potted Pork”, Crispy Pig Tails, Tongue and Cheek Rillettes, Pork Pot au Feu, etc.”Oh, man… You had me at ham pave and tete du cochon.Bastille’s kitchen really goes all out for this kind of thing, offering two sides (like roasted champignons, carrots au beurre noir or pommes de terre confit) and two apps (a roasted beet salad, perhaps, or if you’re feeling truly carnivorous, a charcuterie plate or crispy Carlton Farms pork belly with honey-poached rhubarb) to bracket the main course of an entire suckling pig (as described above), a whole lamb, fallow venison (in season), game birds, duck or rabbit. According to Bastille, dining in this style is really only for groups of six or more. The Whole Beast menus start at $60 per person and, because none of what’s been described above is easy–from the sourcing to the prep to the final presentation–the house needs 7 days advance notice before you can pig out.Still, this is the kind of thing that’s worth planning for, don’t you think? And even though dinner for you and nine of your closest friends would clock in at $600 (minimum), I still believe that this is the kind of indulgence that’s totally worth it.Like Ferris Bueller says, “If you have the means…”