What’s the new foodstuff that America’s best chefs are swooning over, and putting on their menus in an astonishing array of variations? It’s not some newly discovered sea creature. It’s not some obscure vegetable or rare fruit. It’s something so old that it’s new again: pork.

For decades chefs in fancy French or “continental” restaurants turned up their noses at pork, probably because it’s so commonplace. If pork made any appearance, it was usually as chops; but both chefs’ and diners’ attention focused on steaks, veal, seafood or fish.

As industrial farming increasingly dominated U.S. agriculture, American pork began coming from CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations). Pig breeds, and diets – including growth hormones and prophylactic antibiotics – were developed for two purposes: first, that they gain weight as fast as possible in CAFOs’ overcrowded conditions; second, that they attain that weight while being as lean as possible. Pork, always relatively inexpensive, became even cheaper and as lean or leaner than other meats. But those goals came at the expense of flavor and succulence, as well as humane living conditions.

Meat from CAFO pigs is so bland that it’s characterless; so lean that it’s easily overcooked and dry.

Then heritage breeds began reappearing, although they were – and are – a drop compared to the ocean of industrially produced pork. The meat equivalent of heirloom fruits and vegetables, they’d been developed for maximum flavor, not mass production. Some were still being raised on a small scale, most notably English Tamworths and Berkshires, breeds still produced for their superior taste. Berkshires had even thrived in Japan as Korubata pork, which fetches astronomical prices in a culture that pays hundreds of dollars for a single melon. Other breeds hadn’t fared as well. Many became extinct, others only raised by hobby farmers.

As chefs discovered the flavor, succulence and versatility of heritage pork they began featuring cuts of fresh pork on their menus.

Some began making a range of charcuterie (a French classification for meat preparations such as ham, dry-cured sausages such as salami, confits and fresh sausages) that go far beyond standard pâtés. Some searched out American artisinal makers of bacon and proscuitto. And they eagerly looked for ever more flavorful breeds.

When Mangalitsa (pronounced mang-ah- LEETS-uh) pork arrived on American shores in 2006, many chefs believed that they’d found porcine nirvana.

Mangalitsas were developed on Archduke Joseph Hapsburg’s Hungarian farms in the 1830s. They became highly valued for their extraordinary flavor and succulence. But with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after WWI, the Mangalitsa herds began a decline that accelerated in post-WWII communist Hungary.

Hungarian geneticist Peter Toth says that when communism collapsed, things got even worse for Mangalitsas. In an April, 2009, New York Times article he says: “The state farms that served as the last gene banks also collapsed. It was total anarchy.” Toth believed the unique Mangalitsas were worth saving. It wasn’t easy. “When I started to…search for them in 1991, I found only 198 purebred pigs in the country. Sometimes, I would rescue them right from the slaughterhouse.”

Toth was successful in saving Mangalitsas, and began sponsoring their production on small regional farms.

In 2006, Heath Putnam of Washington state imported 25 Mangalitsa pigs and founded a company, called Wooly Pigs because of the Mangalitsas’ abundant, often curly, hair. Putnam sells the pork as well as piglets. Only neutered piglets are available for purchase, however, which means that so far Putnam controls the American market.

Much of what makes Mangalitsas so special is their fat. There’s lots of it, and it’s exceptionally flavorful. That might sound off-