Around a month ago I went with a few friends on a late-night outing in the woods near Budapest to watch the annual meteor shower known as the Perseids. While the shooting stars were haunting, more haunting still was a very large wild boar (vaddisznó, pic above via jns001) that crashed our party and spent much of the night lurking in the nearby darkness, gnawing on what we all hoped were acorns – but which sounded suspiciously like bones – and occasionally getting close enough that we were forced to take temporary refuge in car. (The beasts can be dangerous, especially if they are with their young.)

Now I see via inforadio.hu that my Close Encounter of the Porcine Kind was not an isolated incident, as across Hungary and much of Europe wild boar populations are surging. Meanwhile, due to earlier floods, numbers of other, smaller types of game have dropped; in certain counties up to half of rabbits and pheasants have perished. All of which means that you should be eating extra helpings of vaddisznó in the upcoming months. While wild boar is readily found on menus in restaurants throughout Hungary, you can also find the stuff in the freezer department of many food retailers. As for how to cook it yourself, below are six traditional Hungarian methods.