Lardo by Bob DelGrosso; Speck by Heath Putnam Farms - Foods in Season

Bob del Grosso's work.

Bob del Grosso, chef, CIA instructor and Mangalitsa fan, has a beautiful picture of some lardo he made from some of Mosefund's Mangalitsa pork.

Bob understands how to use Mangalitsa pigs - one slice at a time.

It is very difficult to sell fresh Mangalitsa bellies to individuals or restaurants, but if you make them into speck or other cured products, lots of people will buy small pieces of the stuff and wrap it around dry things, like bread, chicken or fish. They'll pay a lot per pound. So you can sell a lot of belly if you process and cut it up.

One thing I've noticed in the last year is that sophisticated restaurants that sell a lot of fish and make their own bacon like Mangalitsa bellies, because they can cure them and then have great bacon to put on their relatively dry fish.

So I've just started marketing the speck through Foods in Season. Foods in Season sells a lot of fish - several thousand pounds a week - so their customers need Mangalitsa speck to make the fish taste better. They don't know it now, but after they eat their way through their block of the stuff, they ought to know it.