Why I S Berkshire the Kobe Beef of Pork
We get them in sizzling strips, crispy belly slabs, breaded and fried into porkchops Milanese, and slow-roasted in a stew. But how much exercise we really know about the pork nosotros're consuming?
Here's the lowdown on five of the tastiest breeds.
Mangalitsa or Mangalica
A sus scrofa wrapped in a woolly fleece might sound whimsical, but the curly-haired sus scrofa exists in the form of Mangalitsa pigs. And they produce a meat and so delicious it's been hailed equally the "Kobe beef of pork."
Mangalitsas were historically raised for lard and prized for their mellow, silky fatty. Their popularity declined with the substitution of cheaper vegetable oils for lard, and the availability of hogs that were leaner, faster-maturing and less expensive (only also less flavorful). Purebred Mangalitsas nearly vanished until a Hungarian geneticist worked to revive the breed several years ago.
Slabs of pork belly from the British Berkshire sus scrofa.
Berkshire
They're prized for their juiciness, flavor and tenderness. The meat of a Berkshire pig is pink-hued and heavily marbled. And its high fat content makes it ideal for long and high-temperature cooking.
Herds of the breed are however maintained in England by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust at Aldenham State Park, Hertfordshire, and by the South of England Rare Breeds Centre in Kent. But due to cross-convenance, fewer than 300 pure Berkshire sows are known to exist. The pig is likewise bred in Japan's Kagoshima Prefecture, under the proper noun Kagoshima Kurobuta.
Jeju Island Blackness Pork
Across Korea, at that place are restaurants that are singularly devoted to samgyeopsal (pork abdomen), but on Jeju-practise, there are restaurants that further refine and ascertain their menu with huek dwaeji samgyeopsal, or black grunter pork belly. This local heritage breed of hog bares a more definitive porky flavor every bit well as a good bargain more fat.
In fact, the local black hog is held in such high regard that many restaurants serve the cuts of the pork with some strands of the ubiquitous blackness hair still visible to authenticate its origins. The hair doesn't deter the eater much since nigh of the black pork is served in Korean BBQ houses and will get charred to a crisp upon cooking.
Jamón ibérico ("Iberian ham") is a blazon of cured ham produced in Spain and Portugal.
Iberian
Delivering season and texture like no other—delicate, nutty, with a melt-in-your-mouth marbling—the black Iberian pig is more commonly known by its Serrano name of pata negra. It looks dramatically unlike from the domestic pigs we're used to. With blackness hair, almost slender-looking legs and large floppy ears, pata negra from South-Western Kingdom of spain is the final of its kind.
It is an indigenous, gratuitous-roaming link to the European wild boar. Pata negra forages the forest floors of the region's dehesas, or Mediterranean oak woodlands, feasting on wild thyme, rosemary, mushrooms, and nearly significantly, acorns. This aboriginal and natural diet coupled with pata negra's genetic power to store fat inside of, non just around muscle tissue, produces a uniquely tender, rich, rosy meat that's almost beefy in flavor.
Kurobuta
Pork is a prominent function of Kagoshima to this day, which is why it is non surprising to hear that Kagoshima is the leading producer of pork and that the Kagoshima kurobuta (black grunter) is one of the country'southward well-nigh highly regarded variety. Merely as mentioned earlier, the origins of the kurobuta pork can be traced back to the black British Berkshires. The English royals were said to have kept a herd of the black Berkshires at the Castle of Windsor, and some of these pigs were brought to Nihon by British diplomats as a gift in the 19th century. However, modernistic Kagoshima kurobuta is typically a hybrid of the British or American Berkshire and domestic black pigs.
Source: https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/article/features/pork-guide-berkshire-iberian-mangalitsa