Romania vs. Hungary: Romanian tabloid ‘steals’ indigenous Hungarian pig variety

Romanian tabloid Adevarul may have just started a new diplomatic war between Hungary and Romania with an article in which it appropriated the traditional Hungarian pig breed, the Mangalica, as a Romanian breed.

Writing about the Romanian visit of food vlogger Mark Wiens, whose Youtube channel has over five million subscribers, the tabloid added several paragraphs in which it said the mangalița (Romanian spelling of the Mangalica pig breed) is “one of the most famous Romanian pig breeds alongside the Bazna pig.”

In truth, the Mangalica is a pig breed developed in Hungary in the mid-19th century after breeders crossed a local pig variety with a wild boar.

Its most notable exterior feature is a thick and coarse wooly coat and its dark coloring. It also differs from other pig varieties in that it has very little lean meat, with most of its meat interlaced with fat. That fat, however, is low in cholesterol, making it one of the healthiest pork meats.

Mangalica pigs are currently raised in Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Switzerland, and the United States, but the majority of the production, 60,000 animals a year, occurs in the pig’s home country, Hungary.

Title image: Mangalica pigs (source: JoachimWohlerBremen)