The Romanian tabloid Adevarul may just have started a new diplomatic war between Hungary and Romania with an article in which it appropriated as Romanian a traditional Hungarian pig breed, the mangalica.
Writing about the Romanian visit of food vlogger Mark Wiens, whose Youtube channel has over five million subscribers, it added several paragraphs in which it said the mangalița (Romanian spelling) 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 as a cross between a local pig variety and wild boar. Its most notable exterior feature is its thick and coarse wooly coat and 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 is currently bred 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) is in its home country, Hungary.
Title image: Mangalica pigs (source: JoachimWohlerBremen)
