Austrian Mangalitsa Products

There's a nice article in Spanish about Mr. Olmos and Mr. Toth forming their Mangalitsa business - "Una empresa de jamones recupera una raza de porcino al borde de la extinción"(here is a google translation).

The Spanish know what to do with the pigs - they'll treat them like their own Iberico. They won't bother to turn the Hungarian pigs into Hungarian products (e.g. szalami) and sell that in Spain (although Pick and Herc do export all over Europe).

Similarly, the Austrians have started processing Mangalitsa pigs, into their own Austrian products.

Their products are different from the Spanish products. A few key differences: they smoke their products, they bone out the legs and they use wet or mixed curing methods. Here's a summary of Austrian methods, translated into English.

Here are some photos of traditional Austrian products made from Mangalitsa. Click on the captions for more info:

Bauchspeck

Paprikaspeck

More Rueckenpeck

Rohschinken aka ham

More ham

Kareespeck- aka "loin bacon"

And so on. Click here for all their Mangalitsa products. There's a lot of pates, lard products and a bunch of specialty products that don't immediately spring to mind when you think Mangalitsa.

One funny thing about the Austrian products is the huge amount of fat in the products. Indeed, some of the products, like the Paprikaspeck, are entirely fat. That product - which many think of as a Hungarian specialty - is one of the most addicting. The versions I've had were parboiled, which gives the fat a wonderful bite.

Normally people need to try these products in order to be convinced of how great they are. If you haven't eaten them, they probably just look too fatty - perhaps even repulsive. One bite is normally enough to turn people around.