Mangalitsa Products

There's a nice post here about Mangalitsa tamales. Another customer vouches that Mangalitsa tamales are worth the effort.

Next week at the U-District, Pies by Jenny will have Mangalitsa pies. She's had them for a week or two. Also, La Pasta should have some Mangalitsa-sired pork ravioli.

Monsoon is also serving Mangalitsa-sired pork now.

"Mangalitsa-sired" means the "father" of the pig is a Mangalitsa. The dam (aka "mother") is something else.

Cochon 555 New York

The Taste Network is having a breed-specific pig competition in New York.

Mosefund Farm, of New Jersey, will compete with a Mangalitsa from Wooly Pigs. Michael Clampffer, the chef of Mosefund Farm, will compete against four other chefs, among them Del Posto's Mark Ladner.

When the competition was held in Napa, Chris Cosentino won the competition with a Mangalitsa. Among other things, he served skewered fatback. Here's a menu that Michael did in December, which impressed the attendees. I really loved the bacon, whipped lard and Italian sausage that he did.

Mangalitsa

As Mosefund Farm will be fattening Mangalitsa pigs for the New York area, this event gives them an opportunity to show New Yorkers what is so special about Mangalitsa.

Hungarian Domesticated Animals, Farm Evolution

In these photos of a Hungarian farm near Pecs, you can see they've got cheap structures to protect the pigs from the sun. There's not much else, besides a little fencing. Somewhere, there's got to be some food and water - or the pigs would have to bust out to go get some.

It gets cold in Hungary. Just imagine being out there in winter, and being the small pig on the outside of the huddle.

In this next photo, you can see more of the farm. There's more space, more pigs. Everything flows downhill:

The most obvious feature of the pigs are their coats.Other Hungarian animals look this way too. Here's one of their dogs herding some Racka sheep:


In the late 1800s, the Hungarians started fattening Mangalitsa pigs in a more industrial fashion. This photo below is the I could find.

In the photo on the right, they've got train tracks very close to the pigs. That would be great for moving food in and manure and pigs out. These days we'd put in a loading dock to get pigs in/out, and a concrete apron to drive equipment on.

Food Trends

Whipped Mangalitsa lard

There's an article in the New York Times about how caramel seasoned with salt went from fancy kitchens in Europe to Wal-Mart.

I have to figure that Mangalitsa is entering stage two. Stage 1 is fancy restaurants. Stage 2 is fancy food magazines.

I think we'll be in Stage 2 for a while - because Stage 3 is supposed to be "more-inventive chain restaurants" like the Cheesecake Factory. It is hard to imagine Cheesecake Factory serving whipped Mangalitsa lard - but maybe that day will come.

Mangalitsa-Sired Bacon

Some customers bought some Mangalitsa-sired pork and made some bacon from it. The Manglaitsa-Berkshire belly is leaner than the purebred Mangalitsa belly.

Monsoon is serving Mangalitsa-sired pork right now. Monsoon East should have it next week.

Mangalitsa/Mangalica in Saveur's Top 100 Foods

Mangalitsa pigs rooting in straw, taken in Austria.

Saveur has a list of their favorite foods. The list includes things from issue 1 all the way to issue 117. Mangalitsa is listed as one of them.

I think it is the only pig breed on that list. Looking at results like these, it makes sense why Mangalitsa gets the unique treatment; it really tastes much better than other breeds.

Appeal for Sous Vide Advice

Dear blog readers,

Does anyone have any tips on doing Mangalitsa belly sous vide? A customer was asking about this yesterday. She can probably borrow a circulator and wants to try it on some Mangalitsa, but she'd like to have a recipe. She reads this blog, so if you reply in a comment, she'll see it.

Thanks very much!

Here's a place in Hungary that does Mangalitsa sous vide. I suspect The Herbfarm will be doing some Mangalitsa sous vide too, given that they now have a circulator.

Saveur Article about Mangalitsa

There's an article in the 2009 Jan/Feb Saveur that mentions Mangalitsa (aka "Mangalica" and "Mangalitza") and Wooly Pigs.

Saveur and writer Carolyn Banfalvi did a fantastic job with the article. Wooly Pigs is ecstatic that Mrs. Banfalvi wrote such great things about Mangalitsa. It is gratifying that Mangalitsa is finally receiving national attention.

For me, the key sentence, and one with which I heartily agree, is where she explains that Mangalitsas produce "... red and richly marbled flesh that doesn't at all resemble, in look or taste, other kinds of pork."

She also mentions that that the Mangalitsa lardo she enjoyed in Vienna "... had a creamy texture and intense flavor that surpassed those of any other lardo I've tasted."

I agree. I've eaten that very lardo. Here you can see some videos by Chef Stockner, the man who made that lardo: part 1, part 2 and part 3. There are more videos of Chef Stockner discussing Mangalitsa.

The article also states, erroneously, that Wooly Pigs has sold breeding stock to farms in New Jersey and California. That's not true - Wooly Pigs sells neutered animals. There's more info here about who is fattening Mangalitsa.

Mangalitsa Compared to Other Breeds

The loin cuts varied from breed to breed.

I found a preliminary report on the web that compares meat quality across breeds. The researchers bought meat from different producers, then ran a tasting panel. This includes standard crossbreds and many "heritage breeds".

Such an experiment doesn't isolate environmental effects from genetics. Just look at the photo above of their samples - the Mangalitsa was clearly much older and (ridiculously) fatter than the other pigs.

Yet such a study does give useful information to consumers, who typically have to choose from several options. Breed is the primary factor that determines meat quality, and it is the one (as opposed to feed or age at slaughter) that the consumer can control when he purchases his meat.

There is tremendous variation, and Mangalitsa really stands out:

Especially the content of intra muscular fat (IMF) and pigment varied between the breeds. IMF varied from 0.9% (Hampshire) to 7.5% (Mangalitza). One single Mangalitza had an IMF of 11.8%. Mangalitza also had the highest content of pigment (61.8 ppm), while Standard had the lowest content (19.0 ppm).

As the report explains, there are a number of areas where Mangalitsa stands out - juiciness, flavor, etc. Hence, the principal component analysis of the sensorial characteristics of the pork chops has the Mangalitsa in its own category. Others have reached the same conclusion; Mangalitsa is too juicy and flavorful to be in there with the others; it goes in its own category.

Although this test look at meat quality, I am confident that had it examined fat quality, the Mangalitsa would have likewise been superior. As our customers will tell you - Mangalitsa chops taste better than normal ones, but Mangalitsa fat is really where it's at.

With the "heritage pork" market growing, it is nice to see a study that show not only that there's a lot of variation across the heritage breeds, but also that Mangalitsa is of particular value.