Pilisvörösvár Photos

There's a blog from a guy in Hungary where he shows photos of his life in Hungary.



A few months ago, he bought some cute Mangalitsa piglets.


Now it looks like one of them has been slaughtered.

The slightly sad feelings when I see the second photo reminds me of why I haven't tried to sell Mangalitsa pigs as pets: selling them as pets would prohibit them serving as food animals, which would ultimately doom the breed.

The only way to keep the breed going is for people to eat the pigs. They need to see pictures of those piglets and think, "hey, those are Mangalitsa! They'll sure be tasty!"

Translation Needed: Génbankban szűrik a mangalica-hamisítványt

If there's any Hungarian readers out there, I'd appreciate if you could tell me what this article is all about.

I heard a while ago the Hungarians were going to establish a Mangalitsa genebank. I suspect that's what is going on.

Wiesners Will Visit USA, Teach Mangalitsa Skills

Christoph Wiesner roasting a pig caveman-style

Christoph Wiesner, the president of the Austrian Mangalitsa Breeders' Association, and his wife Isabel will visit the USA in late January to teach people how to fatten, slaughter and process (e.g. organs and cured products) Mangalitsa pigs.



Christoph makes his living by slaughtering and processing his own Mangalitsa pigs on his farm, using traditional Austrian methods. He can tell and show you absolutely everything about small-scale raising and processing Mangalitsa. He's exported Mangalitsa breeding stock around the world.

Christoph and Isabel will visit the Herbfarm and The French Laundry, the only American restaurants currently using the best raw material to produce world-class cured pork products.

Marcel Kropf, Christoph's teacher.

For the last year, Christoph has been studying with master butcher Marcel Kropf, Austria's best butcher, in an attempt to learn all that he can before Kropf retires. Here's Kropf showing how to cut up hogs.

If you are interested in learning from Christoph while he's here, please contact me. There will be some very small classes on things like slaughtering hogs, breaking down and curing hogs, making lard and other products, using organs, etc.

Country Hams and Quality

There's an article about country hams in the Charlotte Observer. It mentions that Iberico can cost $125/lb (for slices), while a country ham runs $3/lb - a factor of more than 40.

Everthing about that is backwards: Spain, a country you think of as having cheap labor, makes their cured products with more technology (and lower labor) than the producer in North Carolina. The Spanish stuff also tastes better and costs more than the American product.

The small amount of imported Iberico that I've had doesn't taste as good as what I had in Europe at Amsterdam's airport. If the imported stuff I tried is typical, the American/Spanish disparity is even more glaring; they trounce us with stuff that isn't even their best.

If one day America manages to produce cured pork products as good as Europe's best (perhaps even exporting them to Europe, like wine from California), I suspect it will be because of the efforts of a small and determined group - among them myself, Christoph Wiesner, Devin Knell, Keith Luce, Chris Curtis, Kylan Hoover, etc.

The Herbfarm's Mangalitsas

I visited The Herbfarm's Mangalitsas today and took the photos below.

That thing on the left looks like it belongs in a zoo. It is a hairy and wet creature.

The newest arrivals (right) have gotten a lot bigger since they arrived. Head Gardener and Herdsman Bill Vingelen has them on organic hog mash, as per the instructions of Executive Chef Keith Luce.

On the far left there's a Mangalitsa-Berkshire cross. He's nearly as big as the 16 month-old purebred Mangalitsa, despite being about a 4 months younger.


A closeup of their little pigs. They are friendly and trusting.

One thing about pigs is that no matter how big their pen is, they prefer to hang out, cheek by jowl on the fence, occasionally gnawing on it.

When it rained, the hogs dug everything out and the whole pen flooded. To help the hogs stay dry, they put chips in the front. The ground is raised up significantly. If the hogs wanted to, they could leap that hog panel. They are content to spend their time eating, sleeping and playing.


Above you can see a hog having fun by rooting in the chips. He jams his nose in the dirt and flips up his head. They root even when they've got plenty of food, explaining why feral hogs are so hated.


When the hogs are gone, Bill says he'll plant corn in the pig pen. The hogs have been dunging in there for months so there's a lot of nitrogen to utilize. Corn is good because it needs nitrogen and the part that humans eat is far from any bacteria on the ground.

The pigs line up at feeding time. Although they've got a feeder, the novelty and surprise factor is very compelling. Bill says they absolutely love greens and any forage, including grass. Such feed is good for the fat quality, because of the antioxidants.

Bill's Mangalitsas love him and like to get touched by him.

There's a book whose title (in German) is "Healing Pigs Naturally". It is about alternative medicine - for pigs. Among other things, you can massage them and feed them special plants that kill parasites (instead of drugs refined from those plants). I know Bill will grow those plants for the pigs if he can; that's very Herbfarm.

Mangalitsa Goes to 11

Mangalitsa fans know that Mangalitsa goes to 11.

Mangalitsa is the western hemisphere's best-tasting and lardiest hog breed. There's nothing comparable. Unlike Europe, America doesn't have any Mangalitsa substitutes.

As the importer (and only breeder) of Mangalitsa, Wooly Pigs brought not only the pigs, but a new system of raising hogs for optimum fat and meat quality to America. The system is about producing the absolute best-tasting fat and meat by controlling the things that matter, not meeting organoleptically irrelevant (and arguably misnamed) standards like "USDA organic" or "Certified Humane Raised and Handled".

As a result, Mangalitsa producers are the only ones in America producing pork as good as the world's best. Anyone who wants to to produce, eat, process or distribute the best-tasting pork in America or Canada will use Mangalitsa.

Food-loving Americans have embraced Mangalitsa more than I could have ever hoped:

• Wooly Pigs' first sale was to the French Laundry, America's best restaurant.

• Red Mountain Farm decided to raise Mangalitsa in the best way in America's most sophisticated food market, and managed to sell their pigs for eye-popping prices.

• The Herbfarm, the Pacific Northwest's best restaurant, entered the Mangalitsa fattening business. Like Red Mountain Farm, their hogs eat acorns and other feed designed to produce the best raw material.
  

• Seattle customers lined up for fatty cuts like jowls and bellies, and primals likes whole sides, sold at prices from $19 to $25 per pound.

• New York chefs were blown away by dishes like deep-fried Mangalitsa fatback and whipped Mangalitsa lard.

Given Wooly Pigs' rapid and steady ascent, it is easy to forget that in 2006, it wasn't clear the Mangalitsa would find any success at all. The idea that Americans would pay a lot of money for some of the lardiest pork on the planet was crazy.

The fact that newcomers like Wooly Pigs and Red Mountain Farm could appear from nowhere and each sell their Mangalitsa to the best restaurant in America - as their first sales - shows the huge potential in Mangalitsa and our Austrian methods. By doing what it takes to produce the best-tasting product, one can easily beat those focused on different things.

Photo Destined for Television

Given what the food press and bloggers have written about Mangalitsa (and what's in the pipeline), we know that foodies are steadily hearing about it.

Somewhat unexpectedly, there are signs that Mangalitsa is entering the general American consciousness. E.g. in an upcoming episode of "Eleventh Hour", Mangalitsa will play a key role in the plot: Mangalitsa will be described as a super-rare breed of pig that produces the best meat.

I'm surprised that the writers for the show even know what Mangalitsa is. Nobody has sold Mangalitsa down there. Yet somehow they are getting the message.

2009 is going to be a very interesting year:

• Mangalitsa production should be 20x what it was last year.
  
• Red Mountain Farm will continue selling pigs in the Bay Area.
  
• More farmers are buying Mangalitsa so they can fatten and sell them in their local area.
  
• Wooly Pigs will sell a lot of Mangalitsa in the New York Metro area.
  

Bay Area Mangalitsa Offal

Mangalitsa Offal. Photo apparently by Hank Shaw.

One great thing about Red Mountain Farm, is that they sell pigs in the Bay Area, a trend-setting, food-oriented place. The Bay Area's Hank Shaw is already writing about his experience with Mangalitsa offal.

It will be interesting to see how quickly Mangalitsa catches on the Bay Area.

Mangalitsa Pigs Make the Laundry List Again

Red Mountain Farm's Kylan Hoover with Mangalitsa

Around this time last year, my first customer, The French Laundry's Executive Sous Chef Devin Knell, received 3 hogs from Wooly Pigs. The carcasses weighed approximately 700 pounds.

Per Devin's wishes, I had agreed to deliver them chilled (never frozen) skin-on, uncut and with all the organs.

From the moment the hogs got to the slaughterhouse, things went badly. They penned the Mangalitsa pigs with some other pigs, stressing them. They cut up the hogs' heads, ruining them for head cheese. Because I'd agreed to deliver them whole, I had to charter an entire refer truck to deliver them - something expensive and wasteful.

I had similar problems serving my Seattle customers. The most quality-sensitive, The Herbfarm, didn't get their hog's head at all, which really left a bad taste in their mouth. Nevertheless, the hogs were the best (for cured products) that they'd ever received.

Knowing that slaughter and logistics would continue to be a problem, I decided I should sell barrows to people like the Bay Area's Red Mountain Farm and The Herbfarm. Transferring responsibility for the slaughter and logistics closer to (or directly to) the consumer would improve the consumer's experience.

The Mangalitsa is one of the world's best tasting breeds. It not only attracts customers like The French Laundry and The Herbfarm - it also attracts producers like Red Moutain Farm, who are up to the task of delivering the highest quality pork (by controlling breed, feed, age at slaughter, pre-slaughter stress and post-slaughter ripening).

The French Laundry recently took delivery of nine Mangalitsa hogs from Red Mountain Farm, each about 15 months-old (approximately 1800 pounds total). Devin Knell explained that:

• The hogs were absolutely beautiful, with incredible amounts of fat.
  
• He bought a walk-in cooler and built an aging room to process all the meat.
• He's curing the loins, bellies and hams along with 3 different types of dry-cured sausages. He used all the offal.
  
• He processed it all in 3 days.
  

I'll hopefully have pictures soon.

My Mangalitsa Rillettes

Mangalitsa Rillettes

Inspired by the Mangalitsa rillettes I ate recently, I made two batches of Mangalitsa rillettes yesterday.

I used the 50/50 Mangalitsa trim. It is mostly from the chest of the pig. That's some of the worst fat on the pig, because it is stringy and soft. Nevertheless, that cut of a Mangalitsa is still very valuable, because the fat quality is so high.

I started by cutting the meat and fat up. I removed the arteries, pericardium and blood as I cut the fat up. Then I put it in the slow cooker.


I left the first batch in overnight. When I woke up, the fat was bubbling and there were meat chunks cooking in it. Some of them were hard and brown, so I took them out. The second batch I did during the day, and I added water to them as they cooked, so I didn't burn any.

With both batches, after cooking the meat, I used a colander to separate the meat and the fat. Then I shredded the meat with forks.

Then I put the meat into a pan and heated it longer, after adding salt and spice (just garlic) and a lot of the original fat. Rillette recipes seem to suggest 60% lean and 40% fat, but I used more like 50-50. Mangalitsa fat is so light that using more isn't usually a problem.

Because the rillettes are normally eaten cold, I made sure to put in what seemed like extra salt.


After 30 minutes of simmering, to distribute the flavors, I packed the meat in jars, added a covering of fat and stuck them in the refrigerator. The result, when cooled, looked like the photo at top.

Later on I ate some of each batch. The one that was darker had a stronger taste and was overall more satisfying. Both of them were incredibly tasty.

The biggest surprise to me was that I was able to turn what wasn't very desirable product into something really tasty.