Let’s get over the difficult part first. How do I say this? Red wattle pigs have this…thingy…that hangs down on each side of their necks. It’s cylindrical, fleshy, and dangles in a slight pendulous arc behind the jowls of these curious animals. When the pig walks, the little elongated facial zeppelins yaw back and forth, causing children to point and laugh, women to discretely giggle, and men to smirk. This ‘wattle’—as polite a noun as one could conjure for this evocative protuberance—is the distinctive feature of this breed, along with its red hair. Thus, the name ‘red wattle’ aptly describes this rare beast.
The second thing you need to know is that red wattles produce what is possibly the best tasting pork in the world. In blind taste tests, they have bested many other breeds of pig. Their meat is deep red and interlaced with rich veins of fat. When cooked the fat liquefies, imbuing the meat with moisture and a complex broth that seems perfectly balanced to appeal to every carnivorous neuron that still pulses in our primitive brain centers. To eat properly roasted red wattle pork unadorned by spices and condiments is to partake of one of the greatest and purest culinary delights.
And the third thing you need to know is that this wonderful breed of pig emerged from the misty depths of an uncertain past and, after hundreds of years of an uneasy truce with mankind, has in the last few decades teetered on the brink of extinction. In total number, the global population of red wattles is just a tiny fraction of the endangered mountain gorilla population. And giant pandas far outnumber the scattered remnant herds of red wattles. Greenfire Farms created the Red Wattle Project to use the web to track pedigrees of these rare pigs and bolster their gene pool. You can find it here: www.redwattleproject.com.
There are two histories about the origins of the red wattle, irreconcilably different yet each intriguing. I have no idea which account is accurate, or if either is. So, you get to choose.
Origin of the Breed, Take 1:
Centuries ago the hogs came from New Caledonia, a string of tropical islands that were colonized by the French in the South Pacific near Australia. The first red wattles were a hybrid of tasty imported French swine and the local island pigs that sported the surprising neck ornaments. The resulting young were reputed to grow into exquisite pork. When the French colonized the New World –always food snobs– they brought with them their favorite swine, and being active and adept at foraging, these pigs soon spread through the humid Southeast and oak scrub of Texas.
Origin of the Breed, Take 2:
In the late 1800s a wealthy Texan traveled the globe hunting big game to add to his collection. While in Australia, he heard feverish tales of a giant beast that lived only on the island of Espritu Santo. Intrigued, he traveled there to find a giant hog—by his account as large as a rhinoceros—that sported wattles instead of horns on its large and frightening head. He captured specimens and brought them to Texas where they escaped into the wild and formed feral herds.
Whatever the origins of the breed in America, what is agreed upon is that as factory farms grew in their dominance, red wattles, which don’t do well in close confinement, began to die out as a breed and eventually were presumed to be extinct. But in the 1970s, a Texan named H.C. Wengler located a remnant population in a remote stand of scrub oak. He captured two sows, and he promoted the resulting breed through his grandly if somewhat redundantly named organization the ‘Animal Research Foundation of Rare and New Breeds of Animals.’ A third sow was also captured in Texas by Elvis Kirsch. These three sows representing two distinct bloodlines –now called the Wenglar and Timberline lines– are the foundation stock from which all modern red wattle herds descend. Today, there are a few hundred red wattles remaining in the United States on a handful of small farms. In these tiny enclaves, the precious genetics of these pigs are carefully preserved, waiting for the day when once again red wattles can roam throughout the Southeast.
