Iowa Swabian hogs

There's a fascinating video story on the NYT website (not sure if registration is required any longer just to view a video; just go to www.nytimes.com--it's about halfway down on the left side) featuring an Iowa farmer who has bred some black Swabian hogs to put the flavor back into pork. Wonderful, intriguing story. Anyone know if his product is available anywhere in Chicago?

If it's Swabian Hall, then I think it's only mail order, however there are a number of heritage pork farmers closer to Chicago who have other varieties of hog:

http://www.eatwild.com/products/illinois.html

Very interesting and the photo is fantastic. Thanks! --Joy

This is the same farmer Andrew Zimmern profiled on Bizarre Foods last Monday in a show focusing on Iowa.

http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-shows/bizarre-foods/episodes/iowa

These shows are usually repeated pretty often.

A BBQ Buddy of mine cooked a Swabian on Saturday, and called me at midnight raving about how amazing it was.

On Sunday, I had a mission - I wanted one of these pigs.

Had a nice talk with Carl Black II, the inventor of this breed (resurrector is the more appropriate term), yesterday and we're getting one delivered to Rub (very excited about this). These pigs are pasture-raised, fed a diet of acorns & walnuts), and are great for curing/aging. They are a cross-breed of the Chinese Meishan boar crossed with a Landrace/Mangalitsa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian-Hall_swine

Pretty interesting guy, and I love his concept cross-breeding to increase fat content/quality. He calls his pigs "craft pork". I'm not going to waste this premium pork on a BBQ - I'll smoke some of it, probably cut out some nice chops, make some bacon from the belly, and cure some hams. We converted our old walk in cooler into a curing/aging room in our basement at Rub, 65-75 degrees, 45-55 % humidity. Gonna make some Prosciutto & some country ham. I'm buying a whole 200 lb pig (150 hanging), so we'll get a lot to play with..

Here's a video Carl sent me yesterday
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uexw56unlhown ... k.mov?dl=0

I'll try to take some pigs when we get the pig - and report back..
(emoticon of a kid on christmas morning)

rubbbqco wrote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian-Hall_swine

Looks like the German's screwed up the grammar in the wiki text. Take a peek at the last two sentences here and tell me that's not Heinrich with limited English skills and a dislike for Iowa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... &section=2

I thought it sounded like authoritative and encyclopaedic factual content one would expect from wikipedia.