There's an article in the New York Times about a special salami that some collectors are hoping to import to the USA. The salami was given out at the Venice Biennale:

“And then it became a practical one of, ‘Well, how are we going to get this thing here?’ ” she said. “You can’t mail it. You can’t fly with it, or it might get seized.” The museum has yet to work out the particulars fully with customs officials, but she said: “I think we’ll be able to get good guidance on this from other institutions. I’m not worried — we’ll get the salami.” (For now, it is filed in Mr. Heneage’s bookshop refrigerator.)

I'm skeptical. That meat was either produced under USDA inspection or it wasn't. If it wasn't, the USDA is going to want to keep it out of the country, based on previous outbreaks caused by uninspected meat.

Mangalitsa Head Versus Wild Boar

Hank Shaws's blog has a neat photo of a wild pig's head and a Mangalitsa head. The wild boar was skinned and the Mangalitsa wasn't, and the heads aren't cut the same way, but you can see that the Mangalitsa head is ridiculously fat.

Bakers Green Acres and Mangalitsa

Some Mangalitsas at Bakers Green Acres.

Bakers Green Acres has some nice photos of their pigs on the web. Their pigs got used at the Grand Traverse Resort in MI, exposing a bunch of people to their unique pigs. As they write about the event:

Resort Executive Chef Ted Cizma had received a whole hog and processed it on Monday. Tuesday evening he and his staff served fried pork belly at the event. It was fantastic. Even though the pig was not mature the meat had the flavor we remember of our standard mature hogs. It also had a great deal of belly meat and fat such that it could provide the material for pork belly. Our experience with standard hogs was that you couldn’t get a decent belly off them unless they were a minimum of 2oo lbs. dressed (this one was about 120). We were very impressed with how the Mangalitsa pig performed. Chef Scott had prepared some of the lard. He rendered the lard, added some spices (I wish I could remember which ones), then whipped the fat enough to make a butter with it. I tried it on a garlic melba toast. It was very good. I’m not a big fat eater, so wouldn’t want much of it, but the flavor was good. The butter had a lard flavor, but it wasn’t as strong or heavy as I remember lard I’ve rendered from standard hogs.

Mosefund's Rolling Pigs

Michael Clampffer of Mosefund sent me the picture above. Their pigs climb up the bales and roll down them, hitting the pigs below.

Mangalitsa listed by "Daily Fork" as one of 2009's in Vogue Foods

The Daily Fork lists Mangalitsa, along with things like fennel pollen and grass fed lamb as "In Vogue Food Items of 2009".

I'm happy that Mangalitsa attracted their attention.

There is a big difference between Mangalitsa and the other listed items like grass-fed lamb or fennel pollen: that other stuff has been around, but its popularity has recently increased. Mangalitsa, in contrast, is new to the Western Hemisphere. It is quite rare now, but there's reason to think, based on European lard-type pork production figures and the embrace of Mangalitsa by quality-sensitive consumers, that Mangalitsa can develop a lasting presence in America.

The stage we are at with Mangalitsa is something like Wagyu in the 1990s: appearing in high-end restaurants. Right now, The French Laundry (Yountville, CA), The Herbfarm (Woodinville, WA) and Monsoon (Seattle, WA) serve Mangalitsa regularly.

In the end, I think Mangalitsa will have a bigger impact on American eating habits than Wagyu, because we will process Mangalitsa into convenient foods like salami.

More "Mangalica" PR

Hungarian stamp honoring the Mangalitsa breed.

As I mentioned before, LaTienda is marketing "Jamon Mangalica".

They have a new press release, which, in addition to making claims I've already discussed, says that "Mangalica" is pronounced "mahn-gah-lee-kah".

In Hungarian, the "c" sounds like "ts" - so the Hungarian spelling "Mangalica" sounds like the English spelling "Mangalitsa". You either choose the Hungarian spelling or the American spelling. Each has its tradeoffs - but they both sound the same.

I'm happy La Tienda will be promoting Mangalitsa products (although I've got some reservations), because the more they promote the breed, the more it will help Wooly Pigs and other American producers to sell our Mangalitsa.

"National Culinary Review" on Mangalitsa

Reprinted from The National Culinary Review, June 2009, Vol. 33, #6 ©2009 The American Culinary Federation, Inc. All rights reserved.

The National Culinary Review's June 2009 issue has a 4-page article on pigs. The Mangalitsa gets a lot of ink. The article mentions Michael Clampffer, CIA graduate, traveling to Europe to learn how to fatten and process Mangalitsa pigs from Chef Manfred Stockner of Zum Weissen Rauchfangkehrer.

I know Chef Stockner reads this blog sometimes. He will surely recognize the photo at the top as his own dish, photographed in Vienna. I've seen photos from Chef Stockner's kitchen all over the web. For example, the pig you see here is the same as the two carcass photos you see here.

Later in the article, the Mangalitsa gets close to a page about how special it is, and how promising its future in the USA:

Reprinted from The National Culinary Review, June 2009, Vol. 33, #6 ©2009 The American Culinary Federation, Inc. All rights reserved.

Mangalitsa Dinner in Princeton

Michael Clampffer told me that the restaurant Elements in Princeton is having a Mangalitsa dinner. The guest chefs are Aki Kamozawa, Alex Talbot. Aki and Alex run the interesting blog "Ideas in Food", which features things like powdered lardo,

Mosefund Farm Finds Market for Exotic Mangalitsas

Mosefund made their local ag paper: "Mosefund Farm Finds Market for Exotic Mangalitsas"

It will be neat to see how people respond to their first batch of pigs.