Our First Encounter With Mangalitsa
Szeged Szalámi
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Before we even knew what Mangalitsa was, much less thought of importing them to the USA, we had a chance encounter in Hungary, at the Pick Museum.
The Pick Group has produced sausage and paprika since 1869. Their products are famous in Central Europe, but much less elsewhere. Their museum has a store nearby selling their products.
The most expensive salami in Pick's store was their mangalica szalámi.
Language difficulties prevented the staff from explaining what was so special about it, but we figured we would never get another chance to buy it at the source, so we took the plunge and bought some.
When we ate it, we were astounded. It was incredibly meaty and sweet. The salami's fat was soft and moist, without oozing in a nasty way. It was also clear that the meat and fat in the salami were of much higher quality than normal. It was in an entirely different class from what one finds in America.
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Taste Test: American Brand vs. Pick Mangalitsa
In order to check our assessment of the Mangalitsa salami, we later did a side-by-side taste test with the best American salami ($15/lb) we could buy.
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The results were completely one-sided: the American salami was too sour, salty and spiced with fennel, and most importantly, it didn't taste meaty enough.
We figured we needed about five times as much of the American stuff to equal the "meatiness" of Pick's Mangalitsa. Just a slice or two of the Mangalitsa was satisfying, but the weak flavor of the American stuff and its copious salt required us to eat a lot more, chasing the hint of meatiness.
The American salami company was hiding their inferior meat behind the salt and fennel. Irritating, but understandable - what else could they do, if they wanted to charge $15 per pound? If they didn't add a lot of fennel, it would just be slightly better than typical salami.
In retrospect, the test could not have gone any different. The quality of cured products is highly dependent on the breed of the animal, how they are fed and their age at slaughter. As the American salami was made from a young meat-type hog fed unacceptably, it had no chance to equal Pick's Mangalitsa szalami.
After investigating Mangalitsa further, and learning first-hand how addictive it could be, Wooly Pigs' founder, Heath Putnam, decided to import and produce Mangalitsa in the USA.
Next: air-cured products and meat quality
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