The Wooly Pigs are COMING!

Posted Sun, 08/15/2010 - 18:49 by Melissa

The Eating Paleo in NYC Meetup is having a big supper club Wednesday and I've found that yes, Twitter is really useful. I bet you are wondering WTF is that pig? Well, it's a Wooly Pig, AKA a mangalitsa. Mangalitsa are from Hungary, which is one of my favorite travel destinations, but I've also eaten them in Austria. What makes them special is not their furry coats, but their ample stores of luscious fat. Unlike American breeds, Mangalitsa are bred to be as fatty as possible and selected for their fat quality. Because of this, they are known as a lard-type pig. Thanks to the low-fat craze, lard-type breeds in the United States almost died out, but in Hungary they flourished.

Farmer Heath Putnam was as impressed as I was by this delicious pork and he decided to import and promote the breed as Wooly Pigs. Thanks to him, the breed has gained a following in the world of haute cuisine. More quietly, it has also gained popularity among people following paleo, traditional, and low-carb diets. If you want lots of good fat... these pigs have more than enough to go around! 

When Heath heard about our supper club on Twitter, he generously offered to donate some Mangalitsa to our menu! I'm not sure what cut it will be, but if you have free time on Monday or Tuesday and want to help me cook it, let me know. The meat comes via Debragga, an excellent butcher in Manhattan (and perhaps the next stop in our paleo walking tour?). If you are looking for things like lard and other fatty meat...they have it! I feel so lucky to live in a city where paleo can flourish thanks to other symbiotic movements like adventerous eating and traditional foods. Even if it means you have to devote most of your income to living in a teeny tiny apartment with 50 other people...well, as least you can use the rest to buy delicious LARD.

There is one spot left for the dinner, but I'd be happy to offer another to anyone willing to help me cook.

Comments

My mother made pork roasts

by Helen (not verified) - 08/30/2010 - 18:24

My mother made pork roasts all the time when I was a kid, and they were just wonderful. Same thing when I was a young wife...pork was juicy and delicious. Then it changed. For a long time I thought I had started to cook it wrong, and then it dawned on me that they had bred the fat out of it, and that was why it always cooked up so dry and flavorless now. I can't afford organic or pastured pork, so I am hoping the trend to leaner and leaner pork reverses itself soon. Things like that do tend to go in cycles, so I have my fingers crossed.

Melissa, my family's

by David Csonka (not verified) - 08/17/2010 - 08:47

Melissa, my family's ancestors are from Hungary, and I've been wanting to learn more about what my ethnic/ancestral diet might have been. Besides sausages or stuffed cabbage I don't know much about what proper Hungarian food might be. Do you know of any good resources on any particularly health Hungarian foods I might learn about?

Thanks!

Hungary has one of the

by Melissa - 08/18/2010 - 10:56

Hungary has one of the highest heart disease rates in the world. Lots of cake, alcohol, and processed meats. Of course the meat gets the blame. Even worse, a lot of traditional foods are being quietly replaced with vegetable oils.

Good things include really nice wine, sour cherries, offal, wild mushrooms, fermented cabbage, root vegetables, chicken paprika (mmm anything cooked in sour cream), chestnuts, plums, goose, and of course, this Mangalitsa fatty pork. Some of the best dishes I had there were soups made with various broths and smoked meats.

http://www.chew.hu/recipes/ has a good recipe collection that outlines some of the good and bad.

Flying there is expensive, but it's actually a very affordable place to stay and eat in. I had an awesome time there!

Holy cow, that's an amazing

by NorCal Cazadora (not verified) - 08/16/2010 - 21:48

Holy cow, that's an amazing gift - mangalitsas are stupid expensive, like $1,000 for a whole hog (at least here in NorCal).

But if it's fat you want, it's fat you'll get. Went to my favorite restaurant the other day and the chef came out and showed me pics of the mangalitsa he was butchering - the back fat was twice as thick as the backstrap. But dang, you could get a lot of lardo (cured fat) out of that. Enjoy your meal!

I 'adopted' two 75%

by Mudbeard (not verified) - 08/16/2010 - 15:47

I 'adopted' two 75% Mangalitsa's last winter. They are being fed with a diet as natural as possible. No industrialized pig food and living on a small farm with a lot of room and mud.

They will meet the butcher in three weeks. We share the meat with nine persons.

So, please post the recipe's! :)

i'd be thrilled to help cook,

by michele (not verified) - 08/16/2010 - 13:48

i'd be thrilled to help cook, if the offer still stands.