Egyptian Pig Producers - Followup

After the pig cull in Egypt, there were stories about people losing income.

With more time passing, as this article makes clear, things have gotten worse:

• more malnutrition and anemia
• more vermin and disease
• more poverty

From the article:

The government's decision would have dire financial implications... "They made their decision without any research," said Syada Greiss, one of the Christian MPs in parliament.

"Who would this affect, how many, what damage would it do to the local economy, what would they do to replace their lost income? There was no real thought for the implications for one of the city's poorest suburbs. And that's why it feels like discrimination."

The government says it has compensated the Zabaleen but those who reared pigs say they received only a fraction of what their animals were worth.

It was also a one-off payment - hardly compensation for a twice-yearly income on which men like Mr Mosaad had depended.

"If you walk around this neighbourhood they are piling up the organic waste in the streets," said Ms Greiss. "There is nowhere to put it. No pigs to eat it. It is miserable here."

Farmers fear regulation because it can easily ruin them. The situation in Egypt provides an example of bureaucrats, with the stroke of a pen, destroying the livelihoods of an entire class of farmers while hurting public sanitation and general health.

I find it very interesting that people who don't eat pigs benefited from the pigs eating stuff that would otherwise feed vermin.

Pig and Processing News

I saw these articles today. They are instances of trends I've seen and written about before:

• Urban pigs (previously)

• People processing meat themselves (previously)

• Developing countries switching to new genetics and systems (previously) - the Belarussians are likely to lose some of their breeds adapted to their local conditions.

A few thoughts:

Once people start with the chickens, it is only natural to add dairy goats or pigs. Pigs are a lot more fun to have around than chickens.

People who make their own cured products at home typically want to work with good raw materials, because there's little point to investing so much labor in producing cured products roughly equivalent to those a deli can provide. Wooly Pigs has many satisfied customers who can attest to the quality of our raw materials for cured products - The French Laundry and The Herbfarm - two of the USA's most-esteemed restaurants spring to mind.

There's a general trend where developing countries get richer, want to eat more meat and then import genetics and pig-raising systems from countries like Denmark and the USA. This may lead to some ancient pig breeds disappearing. The country-specific breed preservation organizations (e.g. the ALBC) aren't up to the task of preserving the at-risk genetics of other countries.

Marketing the Mangalica

I found this article from "Business Hungary" about the Mangalitsa. Click on the images to view it.

The article says that Toth was an agricultural engineer who saved the pig. My understanding has always been that it was done with the assistance of the Olmos family. I say that because of articles like this one.

I'm guessing the article doesn't mention the Spanish connection because the article appeared in "Business Hungary" (not "Business Spain"). It sounds a lot more romantic to say Toth did it alone - but as the article itself mentions, the Mangalitsa wouldn't have thrived the way it has if were strictly a Hungarian phenomenon.

In any case, if the Mangalitsa could have survived as a strictly Hungarian phenomenon, they wouldn't have needed Toth; whoever was producing the pigs in Hungary would have kept on doing it and it would have been self-stustaining.

Obviously the Mangalitsa costs too much for Hungarian consumers (then and now) to support its production. So even if Toth had come in, gathered the pigs and produced them, without the Olmos group to help him turn those pigs into money when they were done, he'd have been stuck with a mountain of Mangalitsa inventory, and that would have been it.

Looking at it cynically, the ability to pass off Mangalitsa as Iberico probably increases the chances of the breed surviving; so long as Spain remains an expensive place to raise pigs, there ought to be demand for Mangalitsa.

Elements Dinner - Tickets Available

There's still tickets available for the Elements Mangalitsa Dinner.

Visit to a Country Ham Maker

View from the store

Tom Canaday (VP of Wooly Pigs's San Francisco Bay Area Operations) and I visited Johnston County Hams,a maker of country hams. Rufus Brown, the curemaster, showed us his facility, explaining how it works.

From their store, you can see the hams drying (picture at top). In the front, there's the hams from a gigantic pig (over 1000 pounds). They've been drying out since the 1970s and have lost a tremendous amount of moisture. Fat is still dripping out of them.

Johnston County Hams is one of America's last boutique processors of country hams. Country hams are a traditional American food, very similar to Italy's prosciutto, Spain's jamon or Portugal's Presunto. Johnston County Hams has been profiled by the New York Times.

Salted hams

In addition to making country hams, Johnston County Hams makes prosciutto (more dry and aged than the country hams), bacon and other products. One of their hams is sold as a Portuguese-style "Presunto", popular in New Jersey.

I've been eating a lot of their prosciutto today. My pack will certainly be gone before the sun goes down.

Bacon

As the pictures show, you start by salting a ham (which cures it), then letting it equalize, then dry out. In the salting phase, water comes out of the ham and salt moves in. In the equalization phase, the salt moves into the interior of the ham, curing it. In the drying phase, the product dries out and ripens. Enzymes in the meat break it down during the drying phase.

Equalizing Hams

Johnston County Ham is located in Smithfield, North Carolina. Smithfield is a big name in pork - but the Smithfield people normally hear about is Smithfield Virginia, where Smithfield (the world's biggest pork company) is based. I'm guessing there are close to as many Smithfields in the USA as their are Oaklands.

Rufus explained that Johnston County Hams has benefited a lot from tourists driving down the interstate, who see "Smithfield" and think, "let's buy a country ham, now!"

Drying hams

Johnston County has a very nice rail system for moving around the hams, as seen in the photographs. We were very impressed with the plant and its smooth flow (approximately 80,000 hams per year). They've got a system that's been working for decades.

Our hosts were very hospitable. I'm looking forward to going back to Smithfield. Rufus Brown will be visiting Mosefund's Mangalitsa event in January.

The Woolly Coat

Mangalitsa pigs have woolly coats. Such coats make them look cute, even if they are mean.

I was reading that the woolly coats offer excellent protection from the sun and the cold - but they are particularly bad in wet conditions.

This means that raising Mangalitsa pigs in places like Texas or Utah ought to work fine. I'm guessing Florida might be too wet for them.

Cute Pigs are Still Pigs

You might think that a cute pig like the one pictured wouldn't hurt or bite. It just looks too cute.

Similarly, this dog looks cute too:

It turns out that the dog, a Komondor, is typically fierce. And pigs like the Mangalitsa can be too. Here's another picture of that cute Mangalitsa. It looks less cute to me:


And here's a blog post about that same pig, that used its tusks to rip open someone's thigh:

Although placid to look at we were warned not to get our hands in his way ,he has a fine set of tusks which ripped open Chels thigh on an earlier visit into the pen.

Bussinessman's Over the Top Farm

I found this article in the foreign press (translation) about a guy creating a farm/fine-dining/hotel estate where he's got Wagyu cattle and Mangalitsa pigs. He's got some other particularly tasty animals there too.

It won't surprise me if he puts in his own slaughter and processing. Once you get the raw material, that's the next logical step.

It reminds me a bit of Mr. A and his Mangalitsas, and the events he's hosting in January.

More Suisun Valley Farm Photos

I got some photos taken by the breeder who delivered the Mangalitsas to Suisun Valley Farm.

I figure it had to be an odd day for Shane; 50 or so 70-day old pigs show up all at once and they each have their idea of what they'd like to do - dig, eat, wallow, fight, etc. You go from having nothing to suddenly having 50 pigs, each with its own personality.

It can be overwhelming, especially if the farm isn't ready.

In this one you can see the pigs making a wallow. The pigs in the back on the left look to be fighting.

I should mention: it takes a lot of skill to turn out a uniform batch of pigs. Basically, the breeder has to plan out what boar to breed to what sow, to try to get something "in between". If she's got long legs, he ought to have short ones, and vice versa. The goal is that all your sows in a group all farrow on the same day, so that you get a uniform batch of pigs, all the same age. Then you try to help out the smaller pigs, so that they can catch up (as much as possible) to the bigger pigs.

It takes a lot of skill and attention to make this happen. If the farmer does a good job, it is because he's able to effect "unnaturally good" results of all pigs thriving. The "natural" result (observed in nature or on farms without attentive management) is for the weak to remain weak, because the stronger pigs dominate them and hoard all important resources like food, shelter and water. So you'll see weak sows producing weak pigs - some of which die.