Pig farming and butchery (xerri hiltzea in Basque) has been a common activity in the Basque Country since the time of the Celts. We have information about the Basque pig, in particular, from the time of the Kingdom of Navarre (824-1512).
The Basque pig has strongly built limbs, a silky coat with large black spots, a black head and rump, a convex back and large fat ears hanging over its eyes. It has a very docile temperament and grows slowly. It can be farmed outdoors in small herds, feeding only on acorns, chestnuts and ferns.
Despite its 800 years of history, the tradition of farming the Basque pig went through a period of crisis in the early 1980s, leaving only a few custodians of this emblematic breed scattered around the Pyrenees: farmers closely linked to the culture and the land who, in France, begin uniting their efforts in the Aldudes Valley. So this breed has nearly disappeared these past decades, until a group of farmers decided to bring it back. Today we count 3000 Kintoa basque pigs.
This Slow Food Presidium for this breed supports the farmers’ biodiversity-protection work; they are safeguarding this breed by continuing to make excellent, artisanal, traditional pork products, without the use of artificial preservatives or other additives.
The surface of the fat in ham and cured lard is firm, but oily and melting in the mouth, while the leaner meat is tender, soft and elastic. On the palate, Basque pork offers aromas of spices and nuts and sensations of velvety fat. As well as extraordinary ham, the pork is also used to make traditional products like boudin (a blood sausage made with the pig’s head, pork rind, onions and piment d’Espelette), chicons (pork breast and fat cooked over low heat for four hours and flavored with salt, pepper and piment d’Espelette), hure (pork head and rind, white wine, garlic, parsley and piment d’Espelette), bacon and cured jowl.
The consortium was created in the unique context of the Basque Country where a strong regional identity and the reaction to the dominant agricultural model have contributed to shape a particular model of cooperation. In fact, there are a number of associations that promote artisan producers and they all work together.
Furthermore, several Presidium producers are part of Idoki, a brand and certificate created to protect local and family productions and direct sales.
In the past few years, the French Basque Country 70 farmers including around 20 farmers of the Presidium who breed and produce their own products, have joined together in a consortium which is on the verge of obtaining a PDO under the name Kintoa: European legislation does not allow denominations that use the breed name, so the local farmers have decided to register the historic name “Kintoa”, which derives from “quinta.” This was the name of the tax paid during the time of the Kingdom of Navarre, which has given its name to the area where the French Basque pig is still farmed.
Learn more about the Kintoa Basque Pig and local producers in the following video (in French and English).
Photos—Archivio Slow Food
