Put them in a zoo or eat them?

Monday, August 9, 2010

Three wooly Mangalitza pigs arrived in the Tropical Wings zoo in South Woodham Ferrers, a parish in Essex, England, just before Easter as part of a program to save the breed. But there's another effort on to preserve these pigs from a bygone era. And that plan is all about eating them.

The wooly pigs – and their meat – have a certain cachet among the well-to-do. The New York Daily News reports that cured meat from what it refers to as a "wooly sheep pig" brings nearly US$83 a pound. That's a mighty expensive ham, but the owner of a food store called Greene Grape's Provisions in Manhatten reports that most shoppers buy a quarter pound at a time.

Celebrities are on the band wagon as well. Actress Emma Thompson was videoed with one of the pigs at a movie premiere in March.

The breed is also sometimes called Mangalica or Mangalitsa. The British may be keeping them in the  Tropical Wings Zoo but tropical is what these sheep are NOT about. Previous to the Second World War, they were raised on the steppes of Hungary, where they foraged through the woods for their food. As many as 100,000 head a year were shipped to markets in western Europe. BP