Rich Americans, Poor Hungarians Brought Together By Love of Authenticity, Exclusivity
In these days of international economic crisis and discord, it's always nice to hear stories that illustrate how food can build bridges between peoples. This morning, several readers sent over a link to this story in today's New York Times about the wonders of the originally Hungarian breed of pig known here as Mangalica (and there as "Mangalitsa"). While datelined in the eastern Hungarian village of Emőd-Istvánmajor, most of the story concerns the enthusiasm for Mangalica/Mangalitsa of chefs and food industry executives catering to the most rarefied segment of American society. Among those heralding the "authentic"-tasting pork, which is still rare in America, is the French Laundry, a California restaurant famous for making prospective patrons call two months ahead at exactly 10:00 a.m. if they want to make a reservation, even though a meal for one can easily cost $300.
Meanwhile, just a few kilometers up the road from Emőd-Istvánmajor in the city of Miskolc, a similar love of the authentic is on display. According to boon.hu, Miskolc yesterday inaugurated its first so-called szociális bolt ("social store"). The store sells only Hungarian-made products at a deep discount, allowing customers to "buy locally" while enjoying savings of up to 50%, which really helps when you are trying to live on $300 a month, as many people in hardscrabble East Hungary have to.
"Unlike workaday pork Mangalitsa is marbled," the Times quotes the executive sous-chef of the French Laundry as saying. "[It's] softer and creamier, akin to Wagyu beef."
The szocbolt network is the brainchild of the National Alliance of Hungarian Farmers Societies and Co-ops (MAGOSZ), which has made headlines in recent years due to its militant opposition to the increasing globalization of the food industry, including sieges of foreign-owned fruit processing factories and the dumping of produce in the parking lots of multinational food retailers. The demonstrations struck a chord with many Hungarians, and MAGOSZ's hatred of foreign food is apparently shared by Hungarian Agriculture Minister József Gráf, who has said that only people who "like risk" should buy foreign food products.
According to the Times, the French Laundry uses its Mangalica for a variety of dishes, including saddle poached sous-vide and served with a garlic mousse, while Hungarians, being less affluent, "use them mostly to make lard and cured sausages."
According to MAGOSZ, hundreds of small store-owners have expressed interest in joining the szociális bolthálozát, which are easily identified by their communist-style logos.
On Wednesday, the fashionable Spotted Pig restaurant in New York City's Greenwich Village sold out all 35 portions of Mangalica belly and trotters with Agen prunes ($32) by 9:30 p.m.
That same day, the owner of the Miskolc szocbolt said they plan on opening a second outlet soon in nearby Ózd, a gritty former steel town with large numbers of Roma/Gypsy residents and far-right extremists.
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Foreign demand for mangalica in the 1990s saved the breed. My assessment of potential demand in America led me to import and produce mangalica here.
In the recent past, foreign demand has been crucial to the mangalica's survival, and the breed's future success depends on demand outside of Hungary.
Hungary is better off if the mangalica becomes more popular around the globe - whether due to demand for breeding stock, demand for meat produced in Hungary, increased tourism related to mangalica, etc.
Erik,
Your response to my Times piece was perfect CHEW.
It required no reporting or original research, no insight, no exploration of the material, no advancing of the discussion. Snark -- well, snark it had in spades.
Some of your readers might have appreciated an exploration of why it is that Mangalica, like much of the best of Hungary's agricultural production, has to go abroad for all the value to be added. Why did Mangalicas in America have to come from Austria? One phone call to Peter Toth, the man who rescued the pig from extinction, and you would have learned the USDA doesn't trust new swine breeds for import to be quarantined in Hungary. And which might have led you to discover that the positive attention of American cooks and chefs (5th most e-mailed story in the paper 6 days after publication) might allow actual Hungarians, poor szocbolt customers too, to benefit from the pig they rescued when this clamor helps change the rules.
Peter would also have told you that Hungarians prefer the pig as salami (even calling it "the salami pig"), smoked, with paprika, and don't like the aged taste of air-cured ham, even if they wanted to pay the 35 euro/kilo such aging makes it cost in Spain.
You might have even interviewed me to get some other angles in what turns out to be a pretty heroic story about a man who loves pigs.
But that, like a phone call or two, would be journalism, and God forbid anyone accuse you of practicing that dark art.
What can I say: I don't like food fads, and I just felt like having a little fun with what I saw as two slightly silly food fads involving two very different groups of people with one thing in common (Hungo food).
As for "Mangalitsa" being a fad in the US, I hope I am wrong - it's a great pig - but I don't think I am. I suspect it will end up being a perfect example of the sort of media-driven ephemeral culinary craze of the sort ritzy Americans are so susceptible to. Just as knowing about Mangalitsa now probably gives one good food cred in Scarsdale or Berkeley, in a year or two it will be a way for members of the culinary cognoscenti to sniff out frumpy late-adopters. "Mangalitsa - it's sooooo March 2009."
In other words, a little bit of snarking - rather than more earnest reporting and writing - is exactly what this topic requires.
Meanwhile, I'd take your point about burning reporting shoe-leather more seriously if you'd actually *broken* this story, rather than being at the tail end of the American Mangalica media boomlet.
Another perfect CHEW post, complete with gratuitous personal insult in the last 'graf!
Dude, here's the really great thing about the New York Times. Ready? It is still the New York Times, reaching millions of people on paper and on line all over the world, millions who, obviously, are interested in learning about this, while you will always be Chew Who?, relegated to scrabbling over media crumbs in your own little universe.
Bena, dude, nadgon nadgon bena.
@Michael: That was not meant as a personal insult. I was just pointing out that your piece was simply a late addition to the Mangalica-mania genre.
But if you want to ratchet things up a bit, I will also say that I think your piece contains a crucial factual error, or is at least deeply misleading, in suggesting that in Hungary Mangalica meat is not commonly sold fresh. Most large food retailers now sell all kinds of fresh cuts, from tenderloins to stew meat, and at quite reasonable prices. (From memory, around the equivalent of $5 per pound for karaj, which is roughly what an American would call a "pork chop.")
As for the New York Times vs. a blog like Chew, well, I think that's mixing apples and peanuts. But I would remind you that, due to its increasingly dire financial situation, the Times is currently slashing budgets for pieces like yours while adding blogs that link out to (and comment on) other sites' content, just as we did with this piece. And one of the sites the Times has previously linked to is... Chew.hu.
"Most large food retailers now sell all kinds of fresh cuts, from tenderloins to stew meat, and at quite reasonable prices."
Fresh cuts of what exactly? Really, I'd like to know. Last time I was in a large retailer (Tesco in Disctrict XIII) I could not find any good quality pork or, indeed, any fresh red meat that looked vaguely edible. And if you know any retailer, anywhere in Budapest (well, anywhere with a district number below XV) that sells good quality fillet steak then please let me know!
I am calling this one:
Erik 1, Michael Sander 0.
@Scott: I don't know about the Tesco in XIII, but the big one on the M1 usually has heaps of different kinds of Mang, and all quite good. Seen it at lots of other places too. But you also may want to ask at the butcher counter; I've often found they hide the good stuff in the back.
As for fillet steak - if you are talking about beef, this should't be hard at all. My two local meat mongers - in the District V piac and the guy on Hajos utca in VI - always have bélszín, and often from both beef and veal. But stay tuned - we're going to do a special on where to get beef, etc.
@Adam: Thanks, but I took no joy in that.
Erik, thanks a lot for the information. Yes, I was referring to beef. I'll check out the district V piac (I've been there for fruit and veg, but never considered the meat) and look forward to the forthcoming article.
Last time I was looking for fillet steak was for a Christmas meal last year. I went to Lehel tér piac, which has several butchers stalls. There was a long queue at one particular stall, even though its prices were higher than others, so I assumed that it must offer the best quality meat (as you know, its unusual for locals to want to pay more than average). But the queue was too slow moving for me, so I settled for another stall. There was no bélszín, so I went for marha fehérpecsenye. It was OK, but certainly not good enough quality for a special meal.
OK, after some online research I see that fehérpecsenye (probably silverside in British English) is best roasted or braised. I fried it, which probably accounted for its dryness and slightly tough texture. At the time, I asked my Hungarian relatives how to cook it and they didn't know. If I'd known what its called in English then I could have easily have got recipe recommendations. Oh well.
omg stiff necked michael with his pompous attitude, can you just stick it somewhere where it will not suffer the rest of us? stop, i say it again, just stop comparing apples and oranges. read your nyt and stopo pestering chew readers. we now know you are the expert yet come to slum it when you want entertainment with your news.
" which really helps when you are trying to live on $300 a month,
as many people in hardscrabble East Hungary have to. "
and also in Budapest...What do you think how much the so fair
played Brits are paying in a tesco? You'd know if sometimes you'd
take the effort to go out from that Ghetto of yours! (You know, the
"club" foreigners nicely isolated from locals while taking advantage
of them D))))
Civility has a new name