Mustard-braised rabbit. Pork shoulder in apple cider. Heritage-breed rock hen. Skirt steak with tomatillo salsa verde.

These dishes — all featuring Indiana-raised meats and poultry — appear on the menus of Indianapolis’ and Chicago’s trendiest restaurants. They represent the future of Hoosier farmers who’ve begun to market directly to chefs, first to survive and now to thrive.

The New York Times, Business Week and the Food Network are among the media touting farmers as the new American icon. It’s not just about the food anymore; it’s about where the food comes from.

It seems farmers are becoming the new food-world celebrities, “and they should be,” said local culinary instructor Thom England of Ivy Tech Community College.

One Indiana farmer is on the brink of achieving that celebrity status, thanks to Chicago’s nationally known chefs Charlie Trotter (whose restaurant was named the “best restaurant in the world for food and wine” by Wine Spectator magazine) and Rick Bayless, who has won acclaim for his Mexican-inspired cuisine and devotion to local products. Others are gaining the attention of fine-dining chefs in Indianapolis.

That mustard-braised rabbit recently on the menu at Chicago restaurant Crofton on Wells is from Gunthorp Farms in LaGrange. Ditto the heritage rock hen, available at Bayless’ Topolobampo. Chicago restaurants National 27, Lula Cafe and Carnivale use Gunthorp Farms meats as well.

The pork shoulder at Bloomington’s Restaurant Tallent is from Fischer Farms near Jasper, as is the skirt steak at Elements in Indianapolis.

Not only are the chefs at such restaurants serving Indiana-raised meats, they are touting the farmers’ names on their menus.

Such chefs, always looking for better-tasting products and eager to tap into the growing consumer desire for locally raised food, essentially are creating brand awareness of farmers.

Consumers already have seen an increase in farmers markets, where growers sell naturally raised meats and produce directly to the consumer. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported a 7 percent increase nationwide in the number of such markets from 2005 to 2006.

Experts partly credit an increased demand for locally grown food and a growing number of niche producers willing to provide it.

Greg Preston, director of the Indiana field office of the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, said the number of small-scale farmers in Indiana has risen nearly 80 percent in the past five years.

“We are getting a lot of newer farmers coming in that are smaller, going into direct marketing, specialty products, organics, locally grown, this type of stuff,” Preston said in a recent Associated Press story.

The average income for all Indiana farms is about $41,000. Gunthorp Farms and Fischer Farms both had sales approaching $1 million last year.

For farmers hoping to grow profits while staying small, restaurant sales can be crucial.

But it’s not necessarily easy to get on those menus. Indiana farmers have had to take their products directly to chefs, who often are notoriously difficult to please.

“The important thing for me is the food tastes better,” said Ryan Nelson, executive chef at Oceanaire Seafood Room in Indianapolis, where Indiana-raised beef, pork and lamb are featured on the menu. “As a chef, that’s my first and foremost concern.”

The key to gaining a foothold in the fine-dining market is supply, said former Chicago chef Chris Eley, who now owns Goose the Market, a meat and specialty food shop in Indianapolis. Most farmers who sell in small quantities at farmers markets don’t have the consistent amount of product needed for the day-in, day-out demands of restaurants, he said.

But, Eley said, Gunthorp Farms and Fischer Farms can deliver the goods.

“They understand the business and know how to raise animals without resorting to commercial practices,” he said.

It’s those farmers who are finding themselves in the spotlight.

Greg Gunthorp, for example, a fourth-generation pig farmer from LaGrange, was featured in Chicago magazine last summer. Although, as Gunthorp said, “I’d prefer just to be a farmer,” he has become something of a celebrity, noted among Chicago chefs for the well-marbled heritage-breed hogs and the free-range chickens and ducks he raises naturally on his Northern Indiana farm.

Gunthorp’s success story began with a cold call to celebrity chef Charlie Trotter’s restaurant in Chicago more than 10 years ago and a nerve-wracking drive into the city to deliver a whole pig as a sample. Trotter’s chef was sold, that sale led to another, and Gunthorp Farms now delivers to 15 to 20 Chicago-area restaurants each week.

About a year ago, Gunthorp Farms made a push into the Indianapolis market. It now provides meat and poultry to such local restaurants as Elements, 14 West, Dunaway’s Palazzo Ossigeno, R Bistro and Meridian and has begun delivering to Detroit-area restaurants as well.

Jamie Staton, Gunthorp’s regional sales manager, best friend and “vice president of everything,” said the farm’s output will continue to grow — to a point.

Each week during peak times in the summer, Staton said, Gunthorp Farms will process 15 to 20 pigs, 300 to 400 ducks and 1,500 to 2,000 chickens at its own federally inspected processing plant. And, while business is typically slower this time of year, by late March the farm was nearly as busy as it was last summer.

“I know there’s still a ton of possibilities out there that hasn’t been tapped,” he said, mentioning the Chipotle restaurant chain, known for its use of naturally raised meats. “We want to grow a little more, but we don’t want to get too big.”

Although not as well-known outside Indiana as Gunthorp, Dave Fischer of Fischer Farms near Jasper also finds himself increasingly busy with restaurant accounts.

Fischer Farms meats are available at Indianapolis stores such as Goose the Market, Nature’s Market and Georgetown Market, as well as retail outlets in Bloomington and Evansville. Fischer also has been selling directly to restaurants for the past five years.

“We started with a couple of chefs in Bloomington,” Fischer said. He now supplies meat to a variety of that city’s restaurants, including the white tablecloth Restaurant Tallent, Lenny’s and the casual Nick’s English Hut. The Indiana University Memorial Union food court even includes a Fischer Farms Grille, with such items as steak sandwiches, pork tenderloins and Italian sausages.

Fischer Farms meats also are on the menu at Oceanaire Seafood Room, Elements, 14 West and Meridian Restaurant&Bar in Indianapolis. Oceanaire’s Nelson, for example, buys all his beef and pork from Fischer, who makes the delivery himself each Friday.

“They’ll take all the fillet I can get them,” Fischer said of Oceanaire.

A former computer consultant who began farming about eight years ago, Fischer enjoys working with chefs. But he admits it’s been a learning process.

“The chefs have explained so much of this to me,” said Fischer, who now regularly provides such cuts as the Delmonico rib-eye or the “Trotter” sirloin, steaks with which he was once unfamiliar. “I enjoy getting out there and talking with the customers. That interaction is where I learn.”