The key to the Mangalitsa is that they have more fat and better fat. We only use grain like barley and fresh hay-no corn or soy. What makes the pork so special? We’re raising our pigs according to an Austrian system. We’re the only ones who breed them, while other people are raising them. Where are the farms? We have one farm in Washington and three farms in Iowa. The sows started giving birth in agricultural quarantine and then in the truck.
And how did you get them here? We brought over two boars and 23 sows. To keep our genetic wherewithal and the pigs don’t like to be told who gets to breed with who. Also, we have to breed our animals very carefully. They’re wonderful animals but they’re very strong-willed and have sharp teeth and tusks. Handling meat is difficult and painstaking. Two years into this venture, would you recommend getting into pigs? No! There are too many difficulties to list. It was so fantastic, and because of his background as a Bay Area food lover, he thought he would import the pigs and start a pig company. He’s an SF native, a Cal graduate, who was living in Munich and got a taste of the Mangalitsa. How did this whole thing start? It started with Putnam. I spoke with Tom Canaday, vice president for Bay Area operations (previously a rocket scientist, of course), about how exactly one gets into pigs. Drooling homecooks fear not: Wooly Pigs' pork is also available via special order at 41. But this Saturday, you can experience the rich, fatty pork at (no, not Incanto) … Frascati! Michael Mina is up next. Of course, King Keller got first Mangalitsa dibs a year back. Not your obvious hog guy, the former software and financial analyst has become the first breeder of the burly (and yes, hairy) Austro-Hungarian Mangalitsa pig in the Western Hemisphere, a hog classified as an "extreme lard-type" versus the usual "meat-type." Two years since bringing the pigs over to the US, his work is paying off. In the game of pig one-upmansship, Heath Putnam-the owner of Wooly Pigs-just pushed in all his chips.
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