Eye On Europe: Mangalitsa swine: there’s plenty of meat under all that wool!

Breeders of these curly-coated Hungarian pigs are finding out that demand for their fat-marbled meat is attracting premium prices.

by NORMAN DUNN

Pork meat from the heavy, curly-coated woolly swine, the Mangalitsa, is selling in the United States, and now in Spain, for at least 30 per cent more than meat from conventional commercial hybrids.

The demand is mainly from restaurateurs who claim that pork dishes from the Hungarian breed are tastier because the meat is “marbled” with intramuscular fat. Also in high demand: Sausages and salamis from Mangalitsa meat. In Hungary, one farm in particular claims to have rescued the once-common outdoor breed from oblivion after the collapse of the communist system in the early 1990s.

Better Pork - August 2009