Winfield Farm is pleased to announce that we’re now working with a new USDA butcher – Old Fashion Country Butcher in Santa Paula. Kent Short is a third-generation butcher extraordinaire – the genius who turned us onto Mangalitsa collar steaks and secreto. His most recent suggestion is a cut that he labels “top round steak.”
Thin-sliced from the culatello – the large upper muscle of the ham leg – this cut is extremely versatile, as well as flavorful. For our trial run, Kent sliced the ham steaks to about 1/2 inch thickness, then ran them through a tenderizer. Bruce also lightly pounded the meat before cooking, and the steaks came out very tender. He’s now thinking the steaks don’t need extra tenderizing – a light pounding will be sufficient.
Bruce made Mangalitsa pork schnitzel for our first taste-test, following a simple recipe:
Dust the steaks with lightly seasoned flour, dip in egg wash (some recipes also call for adding milk to the egg wash, but Bruce used straight beaten eggs). He then coated the steaks with Panko and fried them quickly in a hot pan on both sides until golden brown. Bruce fried the steaks in our Mangalitsa lard, rather than butter, to enhance the flavor. (Mangalitsa lard is actually better than butter – high in oleic acid and low in saturated fat – it melts in your mouth!)
Some recipes call for seasoning the pan with a thyme sprig before adding the steaks, or you could add a pinch of thyme to the seasoned flour, as Bruce did. Serve with lemon wedges – a must – a squeeze of lemon juice adds freshness and tang that completes the dish. Garnishing the plate with a thyme sprig also is optional. Our taste-test was a rousing success! Delicious!!
This cut is also great for pork cutlets or chicken-fried steak.
It sounds like the opening of a joke – A Hungarian pig, an Italian recipe and a South Korean Chef meet in a bar – but the pig roast at BIGA in San Diego was nothing to laugh at. There were however plenty of grins as Chef/Owner, Tae Dickey demonstrated his take on an Italian classic Porchetta Roll. Then the afternoon unfolded into a foodies dream. Six acclaimed chefs incorporated pork into eight tasting courses. Delicious ciders from Bivouac and Duck Foot Brewing’s gluten-free beers were on tap. Regal Wines poured Italian vintages. While culinary culture took a turn away from tradition, satisfaction was definitely served.
BIGA Anniversary Chef Collaboration
This was the third BIGA pig roast and there was no doubt the event would be memorable given the chefs in attendance. There was Davin Waite from Wrench and Rodent. Whenever he shows up get ready for inspired bites. Willy Eick of Mission Bar and Grill has mastered the art of blending traditions deliciously. Carlos Rodriguez, chef de cuisine at BIGA, stirs his Texan roots and Puerto Rican influences in uniquely apt ways.
Evan Cruz of Arterra flavors his creations with a Filipino twist. Johnny Dolan of The Lion’s Share was instrumental in bringing it all together. Pastry Innovator, Kristianna Zabala of Split Bake House presented a plateful of tasty textures in a petite dessert flan laced with lard. But the star performance was Tae Dickey’s Porchetta Roll and the demonstration of his signature dish. You’ll find it on the menu every Saturday at BIGA.
Chef Dickey assembling his Porchetta Roll at BIGA
Chef Dickey is no stranger to culinary culture clashes. He was born in South Korea but moved to Italy with his family as a teenager. He attended the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park, New York before opening BIGA three years ago. Those Italian years branded his cooking sensibilities but he’s not reverent about sticking with tradition. Before the anniversary meal progressed he summoned the crowd to a table near the entry windows. A large tray held a side of pork nest to a row of porcine steaks and a bowl of savory greens. Slapping the smooth pork side, Dickey confessed that “Italians tell you to beat the hell out of that skin” but he doesn’t. His secret is sprinkling baking soda over the surface lightly. “As we learned in chemistry class, baking soda is a natural tenderizer,” then he cautioned that after a few hours it’s important to wipe the soda off. Porchetta is traditionally done with pork loin but Chef Dickey favors a Heritage Breed, the Mangalista Pig.
Watch my video about the Mangalista Pigs and Chef Dickey’s Porchetta:
These pigs are nothing to laugh at either. They grow large and wooly and were originally bred in Hungary, becoming one of the fattest pigs in the world. The rush to Communism almost led to their extinction as meatier breeds became popular. Luckily with recent trends towards all things bacon, demand for the pigs has crossed culinary culture borders. Of course, American farmers were curious and a few are raising these porcine wonders. Near Buellton, California at the Winfield Farm big, curly Mangalitsa Pigs have taken over.
Bruce Steel and one of his prized Mangalista Mommas at Winfield Farm
Owners Bruce and Diane Steele were growing organic vegetables when they decided to add a few pigs. The idea was to feed them with their unmarketable castoffs and past date veggies. They scooped up the acorns growing on their acres of ranchland to finish off the pigs’ diet before going to market. It worked too well as the pigs flourished and then drought conditions hampered their farming. Today they create a range of products including Leaf Lard, which is the highest grade and lower in saturated fat than other animals. It’s also higher in heart-healthy monounsaturated fat. If that’s hard to swallow remember that that’s the same kind of fat that gives olive oil its healthy reputation.
Leaf Lard by the quart from Winfield Farm.
Visit the Mangalica Pig Festival
Perhaps you’ll visit Hungary where the pigs have made a healthy comeback. They’ve rebounded from a few hundred to over 50,000 and are featured in everything from family style to haute cuisine dishes. Since 2007, an annual Mangalica Festival promotes products and hog farmers. The Festival in Budapest celebrates with cooking competitions, dozens of Mangalica dishes and over 100 exhibitors. It’s become one of the biggest gastro events of the year. Held in February it’s also one of the coldest but this year Palinka, a strong Hungarian drink will be showcased. The drink is distilled from a selection of local fruits that include apricot, cherry, apples, plums, and pears. If I were there I’d sip the Elderflower and spiced versions but pace myself. With 40 to 50% alcoholic content it’s sure to warm up festival crowds.
Hungarian Parliament in springtime
The Festival is held in a plaza near the riverside Parliament building. The location makes it east to attend by public transportation, train, and even riverboat. For tips about getting around Budapest see this earlier post.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this adventure in culinary cuisine and will share it with your friends or bookmark it for future reference.
Known as Mangalica, Mangalitsa or Mangalitza, this is the pig prized for its high fat marbled meat that has been hailed as the Kobe beef of pork and attracted critical acclaim from chefs around the world.
As delicious as it is, tracking down this curly haired rare breed hog is still somewhat of a challenge, despite its growing popularity.
In response to the huge Facebook interest we had from our initial article introducing the delights of the succulent meat, we’ve decided to put together a list of some of the farms, shops and restaurants where you can get your hands on this tasty find.
From a rural farm in Wales to a three Michelin-starred restaurant in New York find out where you can try this tasty delicacy and you’ll be hooked.
Meanwhile, those wanting to go the whole hog should mark the annual Mangalica Festival Budapest in their diary for three days of celebrations from 10 to 12 February 2017 (TBC) and anything and everything related to Mangalitsa.
Preface — Mangalitsa pigs (like the rare Hungarian breed raised at Winfield Farm) are the only other pigs besides Iberico that can officially be labeled “pata negra”. In fact, Spanish charcutiers rediscovered Mangalitsas in Hungary in the early 1990s while looking for new sources of premium quality lard hogs and found Mangalitsa, and their interest saved the breed from extinction. Mangalitsas also are descended from European boar lines.
[Photographs: Max Falkowitz]
It’s a misty Wednesday afternoon and the pigs are hard at work. So is their porquero Juan Carlo, who’s busy guiding them across this 1,700 acre farm to the land’s choicest acorns. At sunrise, Juan Carlo rouses about 340 pigs from their farmhouse and sets them to work. At sundown he corrals them back to the ranch. This year marks his 25th on the job.
In a few weeks the pigs’ work will be done: they’ll be sufficiently fattened up from their grazing to be slaughtered, butchered, and turned into some of the most expensive ham in the world—at my local source, $220 for a hand-sliced pound. Why so much? Because it’ll be jamon Iberico puro de bellota, acorn-fed pure breed Iberico ham, and sold under the Cinco Jotas (5J) brand, one of the oldest and most well-respected in Spain.
It’s a misty Wednesday afternoon and the pigs are hard at work. So is their porquero Juan Carlo, who’s busy guiding them across this 1,700 acre farm to the land’s choicest acorns. At sunrise, Juan Carlo rouses about 340 pigs from their farmhouse and sets them to work. At sundown he corrals them back to the ranch. This year marks his 25th on the job.
In a few weeks the pigs’ work will be done: they’ll be sufficiently fattened up from their grazing to be slaughtered, butchered, and turned into some of the most expensive ham in the world—at my local source, $220 for a hand-sliced pound. Why so much? Because it’ll be jamon Iberico puro de bellota, acorn-fed pure breed Iberico ham, and sold under the Cinco Jotas (5J) brand, one of the oldest and most well-respected in Spain.
Acorn-fed jamon Iberico is intensely sweet. It’s floral, earthy, and nutty like good Parmesan, with fat so soft it melts right in your mouth. For many ham lovers it’s as good as good gets, and it never comes cheap.
This storybook-green plot of land, dotted with knobby trees and cooled by the breezy Iberian climate, is one of many across Spain and Portugal that raises pigs for Sanchez Romero Carvajal, the company that produces 5J ham. But all those pigs eventually make their way to a small town called Jabugo where hams cure in a 130-year-old cellar designed for the task. From start to finish, the ham-making process is simple: grant good pigs the freedom to be good pigs, let them feast on the land, then cure their flesh with little more than salt and air.
For most eaters, that’s where the story begins and ends. But there’s more to it—a process that blends unwavering tradition and modern technology to produce this sought-after ham. To share what work that involves, Carvajal invited me to tour their farms and ham curing facility. Though the visit wasn’t all-access—there wasn’t time to see the pigs’ nurseries or the actual slaughter facilities, for instance—no questions were off-limits. Here’s how it all happens.
Behind the Label
In the world of Spanish ham, there are two premium classifications: Iberico pigs and acorn-fed pigs. Unlike white pig breeds like Serrano, black-skinned Iberico pigs are descendants of the Mediterranean wild boar, and are colloquially called pata negra (“black foot”) for the hoof that accompanies each ham. They’re athletic animals, runners and rooters, and thanks to the structure of their intramuscular fat, their meat is more flavorful, juicy, and distinctive.
Iberico pigs are expensive. They have smaller litters, yield less meat per head, and take time to mature, which is why many ham producers around Spain cross-bred them with other varieties. Up until recently, ham made from pigs that were as little as half-Iberico could be sold as jamon Iberico, but new legislation now requires Iberico ham to be labeled according to the percentage of the pigs’ Iberian ancestry. 5J is one of the few brands to exclusively use pure Iberico pigs.
Then there’s the acorns, the bellota, which fall from oak and cork trees from early October to early March on the farms where the pigs are raised. They’re high in fat, a large percentage of which is unsaturated oleic fatty acid, and eating them is what makes the pigs’ fat so soft and creamy, on the verge of melting at room temperature. Acorns also contribute to the ham’s nutty flavor and aroma, as essential to the product as the meat itself. Of all commercially raised Iberico pigs, only 5% are both pure breed and acorn-fed.
From Piglets to Porkers
Spanish ham culture has a vocabulary all its own. There are porqueros, not shepherds; pigs are “sacrificed,” not slaughtered; and the farms where they’re raised are called dehesas.
The dehesas are a national treasure: each one to two thousand acres of forest partially converted to pasture, often hundreds of years old, with rolling grassy hills amidst crops of acorn-producing oak and cork trees. Just as acorns are an essential ingredient to the ham, so too are the dehesas. These pigs need to run around all day, over the hills and through the woods, for their muscles to develop and for the ham to taste the way it does.
Over 18 to 24 months, the pigs will root around the dehesa, grazing on grass, mushrooms, bugs, herbs, whatever they can find. Come October all through March, the montanara, or acorn-dropping season begins, and the pigs march into action. Fatty acorns are the pigs’ favorite food, and with a mandated five acres of dehesa per pig, there’s plenty of room to look for them. By the pigs’ second montanara, they’ll have feasted enough to reach their kill weight, about 360 pounds.
Managing the pigs isn’t just left to nature. Carvajal inspectors pay anonymous visits every two to three weeks to check on their treatment and diet. They also sample the pigs’ fat to analyze its oleic acid content—too little and the pigs won’t meet quality standards, too much and they’ll be impossible to cure into ham.
You may have heard that pigs are as smart or even smarter than dogs. On the dehesa they behave more like sheep dogs than sheep. Curious about newcomers, they’d inch closer and closer to me, some even posing nicely for the camera, before bolting away. Unlike livestock domesticated into complicity, these wild boar descendants stay smart.
The Long Cure
The curing facility in Jabugo is over 100 years old: part modern office space, part ancient farm house. In one courtyard you can still see hundreds of hooks on the ceiling from when ham was cured out in the open. These days they rest in a sprawling brick-walled cellar.
Before they get there, the pigs must be slaughtered. They’re knocked out with CO2, and once a pig is deemed unconscious by a vet, a worker slits the artery along its throat until it bleeds out. Legs, loins, and shoulders go toward making Carvajal products, and the remaining fresh meat is sold to Spanish restaurants. The ham-bound legs are then skinned, salted, rinsed, dried, and sent to the curing cellar, where they’ll remain for about a year and a half.
See those hanging bits at the top? All ham.
Carvajal’s 130-year-old cellar is an underground city of ham; step downstairs and you’re slapped with an aroma that’s something like rising bread, aged cheese, and your deli’s cured meat display—multiplied by the 40,000-odd hams inside. With little signage it’s a marvel anyone knows their way around. “Don’t worry,” an employee tells me, “I get lost in here all the time.”
Thick brick walls, a breezy, hilly climate, and a stable population of ham-friendly microorganisms are most of what the meat needs to finish its journey into ham. Skilled specialists monitor the cellars at all times, noting fluctuations in temperature and humidity, but their adjustments are amusingly low-tech. Need to change the temperature? Open or close a window. Air too dry? Spill some water on the floor.
It’s more complicated than that, of course—hams too close to a window may get moved if they dry out too quickly, and the legs are regularly rubbed down with oil to prevent insects from taking up residence—but the most vital and final measurement Carvajal takes is very much a human one.
Before any ham leaves the cellar, it gets a sniff test. A trained nose can purportedly detect 100 aromas from a premium ham, some sweet, some meaty, some nutty. Different regions of Spain have their own hammy terroir, and even different cuts of the same leg bear unique aromas.
A mere eight noses are charged with inspecting all the hams. The job is so specialized that one ham sniffer, a third generation Carvajal employee, isn’t qualified to sniff cured loin (another 5J product) because the aromas are too different. (That’s his father’s job.)
With a short, stubby needle called a cala, the ham sniffer pokes down to the bone, quickly takes a whiff, and covers the breach with a smear of fat. There’s just a second or two to detect the balance of sweet, earthy, fermented, and floral aromas that signal a well-cured ham, and only a ham that passes the sniff test in four inspection sites makes its way out the door. If anything goes wrong, the nose knows.
Even for ham-loving Spaniards, 5J ham is a luxury good, which is why Carvajal also sells a more affordable ham under a Spanish-only brand called, eponymously, Sanchez Romero Carvajal. It’s made from the same pigs and cured in the same cellar, just not held to quite as stringent conditions. Only at the cellar do quality control experts decide which hams get the 5J label and which ones don’t.
To Market, to Market
From there the ham moves on to a grateful world, though in truth many whole hams have already been spoken for by bars, restaurants, and large-scale clients that reserve them while they’re still aging. Jamon Iberico shouldn’t be sliced by machine—the soft fat would sheer out and the lean, bony legs make horizontal slicing difficult—so when Carvajal sells whole hams to a new restaurant or store client, they also provide training in how to slice the ham by hand. (You can see a good introductory video here.)
The company also employs 60-odd expert carvers who fabricate all of its pre-sliced packaged ham. Like cutting fish for sushi in Japan, carving Spanish ham is an artisan job of its own. The perfect slice is nearly see-through, small enough to eat in one bite, and carved at a level angle to get the most consistent and efficient slices from the ham as possible.
Remember how expert ham sniffers can detect four different aromas from the same ham? You may not be able to pick up on all the nuances, but it’s easy to see that different cuts of ham look and feel different, from the maza’s clean striations of fat to the ribeye-like marbling of punta—or the hard-to-reach “butcher’s cut” of the ham, the chewy, flavor-packed cana near the hoof. A skilled carver knows how to make the most of them all, mixing up a plate of ham with multiple cuts for contrast.
Which brings us back to where we started: why does good jamon Iberico cost so much? It’s more than the expensive pigs, spacious farmland, or acorn-rich diet. It’s more than the time and investment needed to prepare and cure hams properly, or the laboratory science and quality control behind the scenes.
Carvajal also sells cured loin and shoulder products.
At the end of the day the question comes down to scale—how much can you produce when every step along the way is so labor-intensive? What substitute is there for highly trained specialists who in some cases are born into the job?
Good pigs, living and dead, need time. And as with plenty of other luxury goods, there’s a choice to do something fast or to do it right. Fortunately for us (and the pigs), there are still some people more interested in the latter.
An exciting story of the survival of a nation & the glory days of the Mangalitsa
The current pig industry in Hungary was probably started by the Transylvanian Saxons, German settlers encouraged by King Geza II, of Hungary (1141-1162) to colonize and defend the southeastern frontier of the Kingdom of Hungary. From the 12th century onward until the end of the 13th century this migration of Germans…
The true story of how Mangalitsas first came to the U.S…. Winfield Farm pigs are descendants from this original herd.
A NEW PIG IN TOWN – story and photo by Heidi Broadhead
Heath Putnam just wanted some tasty pork. And he figured he was not alone.
“There are certain things that people pay money for willingly. They hit people on a really, really low level. Good food is something like that. Porn is something like that. Prostitution. Drugs,” he said. “When I tasted the Mangalitsa, I knew it was one of those things.”
Mangalitsa pigs, also known as Wollschwein or Wooly pigs (the name that Putnam chose for his business), are native to Hungary. This lard-type breed of pig (i.e., valued for its natural marbling as opposed to American pigs that are bred and fed to be lean) was not available in the United States until last fall, when Putnam imported them from Austria.
Putnam first tasted a Mangalitsa sausage when he was working in Europe. He and his wife and business partner, Zuzana, were repeatedly disappointed by the quality of meat here. They decided to import a small herd of Swallow-Bellied Mangalitsa, a close kin to the wild boar, because they thought this nomadic, foraging pig would be the European breed most likely to thrive in the cold, dry Palouse region of Washington State.
Putnam had never been a farmer, and he had no interest in becoming one. He found a local rancher, Gary Angell of the Rocky Ridge Ranch 30 miles west of Spokane, to raise the pigs. Angell’s area of expertise was forage-raised beef. When he told neighboring farmers about the project, he mostly heard responses like “You’re crazy” and “They’re all gonna die out here.”
Putnam planned to go to Austria with Angell to select and purchase the Mangalitsa pigs. Due to some last-minute health problems, Angell had to stay behind and Putnam went ahead on his own, visiting nine farms and amassing as much information as he could for Angell on how to properly breed, raise and finish the pigs.
He joined the Mangalitsa Breeder’s Association, a group dedicated to reintroducing the breed to Austria (it disappeared temporarily in the 1970s) and to maintaining the quality of the breed. He studied charcuterie with a butcher and got whole-hog tips from a renowned Austrian chef.
“He went over to buy nine pigs,” Angell said. Putnam instead chose to import 29 hogs—two boars and 27 sows, the maximum that could fit in one cargo hold. This allowed him to maximize genetic diversity with three to four lines.
Challenges ensued. After being quarantined in Austria from March to May 2007, Putnam’s Mangalitsas were transported to a quarantine center in upstate New York. From May 12 to August 12, the pigs underwent various tests, delaying their stay long enough for 65 piglets to be born in quarantine (and accruing $1,000 per pig in boarding costs). Wooly Pigs lost 10 piglets on the truck between New York and Spokane. At the ranch, the piglets had a negative reaction to a vet-recommended vaccination and they lost one more.
In November, they slaughtered three piglets for samples and to fill their first restaurant order—from the French Laundry—which revealed the lack of USDA-approved processing facilities in their region that could deal with their special slaughtering needs—like keeping the pigs in a low-stress environment leading up to the slaughter, which is important to Wooly Pigs’ philosophy of humane farming and something that Putnam maintains is crucial to preserving the meat’s flavor.
Tasting the Meat
I visited Rocky Ridge Ranch last November. We sat around the kitchen table—Putnam, Angell, Angell’s wife So and me.
“We are the first four people to try the North American Mangalitsa,” Putnam said as he spooned the three-month-old roasted piglet meat onto our plates. “Not like anything you’ve ever tasted, right?”
The dark meat was so moist it crumbled as soon as the fork touched it. We ate the jowls. We chewed the meat off tiny ribs. We ate soft fat that tasted more like cream or butter. We each had different ways of describing what the meat tasted like, but we all agreed on one thing: This does not taste like pork.
Eating a Mangalitsa is like eating a pig from a hundred years ago. It’s a completely different kind of animal. Since the middle of the 20th century, U.S. pork demand has gone the way of lean—lard was replaced by vegetable oils for cooking, and people began to prefer meatier cuts. Pigs were bred to be lean and to grow very quickly.
Old-style Mangalitsas (what Putnam calls on his website “unimproved breeds”), on the other hand, come from a line that was primarily raised in Hungary, Mangalitsas cross-bred with Serbian wild boars.
“They’ve been behind the Iron Curtain since the ’50s,” said Angell. “Maybe that has something to do with it.”
One look at these near-wild beasts will tell you that this is no ordinary pig. The sows have high, curved backs with coarse gray, black and brown hair on their backs and falling over their eyes. They lift and throw giant rocks with their mud-covered snouts. A couple of them nibbled at the back of my leg, which made me a little nervous after hearing that #5 had recently bit Angell, leaving a pretty nasty bruise. Apparently, as long as I wasn’t a coyote or some other predator trying to get to a piglet, I was safe. (Mangalitsas are very protective mothers.)
And most of the pigs we eat in Washington State come from somewhere else. Although exact consumption data is not available, the Washington Department of Agriculture estimates that 90 to 95 percent of pork consumed here is from out of state, primarily from large producers in the Midwest. (As a comparison: As of December 1, 2007, Washington had 29,000 total hogs and pigs. Iowa, by contrast, had 18.2 million.) Input methods vary, but the predominant feed for pen-raised pigs in the United States is corn and soybean meal.
Mangalitsas are self-sufficient and forage in social groups without needing to be fed or moved from one spot to another, so they are perfectly at home in their 30-acre field. Wooly Pigs raises all their pigs (Mangalitsas and Berkshires) on protein-rich crops in the summer. In the fall and winter, they forage on dry oats, peas, sunflowers, turnips, weeds and grasses. They are finished on hay (alfalfa-barley) and a mix of local grains.
“The quality of fat is amazing,” the Herbfarm’s Executive Chef Keith Luce said of Wooly Pigs’ Berkshires, which are raised on the same diet as the Mangalitsas. “It’s embarrassing, actually. We were taking fat and spreading it on bread like butter.”
Heidi Broadhead is a regular contributor to Amazon’s books blog, Omnivoracious, and is currently writing monster descriptions for the next edition of Beasts! for Fantagraphic Books.
Shopping — your cart will add and display your selections on each product page below. You may continue to shop and add items to your order until you wish to checkout. Use the dropdown list under Mangalitsa Market for quick access to our products.
Minimum order $40.
PLEASE CALL 805.686.9312 BEFORE ORDERING ONLINE TO ENSURE PRODUCT IS AVAILABLE.
We supply Mangalitsa pork to local restaurants and some cuts are in high demand. Also not all sausage flavors are available all the time, but can be custom ordered.
We will of course refund any portion of an order placed that we cannot fulfill, or with your approval we may substitute product of comparable value. However, to ensure and simplify your order, please contact us first, before placing your order on PayPal.
Don't forget, you can pre-order particular cuts or sausage flavors and we can have pigs custom processed to your specifications. Just email us your preferences. Processing is seasonal, typically spring and fall. Thank you for your interest in Mangalitsa pork.
