Gourmet.com Article on Pig Breeds

Mangalitsa and Gloucester Old Spot

There's an article in gourmet.com about pig breeds. It features the Gloucester Old Spot.

I refer often to a study that compared different kinds of breed-specific pork. The Gloucester Old Spot scored very high on eating quality. The Mangalitsa, being an extreme lard-type hog, isn't like the others. Among other things, in the study, it had the darkest meat and the most marbling (in one case, an astounding 11.8%, where 2.3% is average for the USA).

Ranked by principle components, the Mangalitsa was in its own category, while the GOS placed next to Berkshire pork from the UK and the Hampshire.

When I read the article, I had a number of thoughts.

The pork we sell at Marlow & Daughters is all from heritage-breed pigs, but while most chefs agree that these animals taste better, no one seems to be able to say why they do or even why some breeds are more popular than others

75% Mangalitsa Pigs

Scientists study why some breeds taste better than others. Their explanations involve genetics and chemistry.

It is important to keep in mind that pork doesn't need to be purebred to taste great (even if some purebreds do taste the best). Europe produced 2 million head of lard-type hogs last year, most of them crossbred. Those crossbred hogs probably all tasted better than any purebred Pietrain hogs. Genetics are the primary factor determining meat quality, but that doesn't mean purebreds offer optimal eating quality, or even the optimal price to performance ratio.

Yezzi relates a story get rid of a particularly aggressive Ossabaw boar that chased him around the barnyard one day.

That's one reason why that feral breed is doomed.

Perhaps Yezzi sums it up for all heritage-breed farmers when he says, “Pasture-raised, rare, heritage-breed pigs just taste the best.”

Looking at the domination of the super-premium cured products market by 75% Iberico crosses, most of them raised entirely indoors, I'd disagree. Taste is a function of chemistry. Things like genetics, feed, sex and age at slaughter matter more than whether or not the pigs spend time on pasture.

Whether you talk about mass produced Iberico products, or small-scale Mangalitsa, pasture isn't very important.

E.g. these Mangalitsa, in Austria don't have any pasture. They have a small piece of hillside and a bunch of muck. But due to their genetics, feed, age at slaughter and stress-free slaughter, they taste incredible:

Iberico pigs in a pen.

On the mass-production side, you've got food pornography like this:

"INTRICATELY marbled dark mahogany folds of ham, each with a generous edge of satiny cured fat, peel off the antique slicer at the Cheese Store of Beverly Hills."

You should keep in mind it probably comes from pen-raised Iberico like the ones pictured.