A Canadian-Brazilian FairyTale - Rance Hesketh's Happy Pigs

Rance Hesketh (in blue T-shirt) and his pigs

The lucky porkers who live on the Alfheim ranch, located high in the Serra do Mar mountain range that separates São Paulo city from the coastal plain of São Paulo state, just might be the most blissed-out pigs in all of Brazil. The ranch, whose name means "elf home" in German, is situated deep in the dense mountain forests of the Mata Atlantica, Brazil's threatened coastal rain forest. It is at Alfheim that Rance Hesketh, 49, a transplanted Canadian, cultivates organic crops and raises a variety of animals in the best-possible and most organic way, and it is there where those fortunate porcines spend their days rooting around, rolling in the mud and grunting contentedly.

Hesketh moved to Brazil in 2008, although he was already familiar with the country from previous visits, upon arrival began to implement his dreams for the ranch. Among his plans and ambitions was a scheme to raise native breeds of pigs organically and humanely. He eventually decided to raise two breeds, the Sorocaba and the Monteiro. When the ranch was ready to receive its first animals, he traveled to Mato Grosso state in western Brazil to pick up his first breeding pairs. Today, Alfheim is home to about 150 pigs who share their territory with organically raised dairy cows and free-range chickens.

The pigs are only fed organic food, which is primarily cultivated on the ranch itself. Sugar cane and manioc are planted on the ranch, and provide the bulk of the pigs' nutrition. Corn which comes from neighboring Paraná state supplements their diet and contributes about 20% of the animals' caloric intake. When the pigs are ready to go to market they are also given whole milk from the ranch's cows to prepare them for slaughter.

Every week, the ranch sends two or three pigs, aged between 3 and 6 months, to the nearest licensed slaughterhouse, located in Ubatuba, 35 kilometers away. Hesketh would prefer to slaughter the pigs on site, but is forbidden to do so by agricultural regulations. He disagrees vigourously with this requirement and says, "What good does it do to submit the animals to the stress of transport? It destroys all we have done in raising them humanely. We need to come up with a less stressful way of slaughtering our stock."

The pigs from Alfheim go to market at a much smaller size than most pork - at about 70 kgs (150 lbs), yeilding about 20 to 30 kgs (45 to 70 lbs) of deboned pork - but Hesketh believes that at that size, the animal provides a better-tasting and more tender meat.

The idea of humanely raising meat animals who feed only on organic, vegetable food is a new one in Brazil, where such ideas are just beginning to take hold with producers and consumers. Whether there is a viable market for such meat in the long run is still unknown. But what can be stated with certainty is that the grunts of the Sorocaba and Monteiro pigs who call Alfheim home sound like the grunts of very, very happy piggies.

With material from an article by Olivia Fraga published in the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper. Translation of Mr. Hesketh's remarks by Flavors of Brazil.

Porco Caipira - Brazil's Redneck Pig

Porco caipira

The Brazilian Portuguese word caipira is one of those emotionally-charged words which carry a lot of connotations, both positive and negative. Just like it's nearest equivalents in American English, hillbilly or redneck, it can be extremely perjorative, affectionate, or a banner of pride depending on the context and who is speaking. No one knows what the origin of the word is, though the most authoritative Portuguese dictionaries indicate that it derives from Tupi, one of the languages of Brazil's original Amerindian inhabitants.

In the world of politics or community relations, caipira is generally carry negative connotations, but in the culinary world it is overwhelmingly positive. Think of it as meaning homestyle or country-style. A rustic chicken stew called galinha caipira is one of Brazil's most celebrated comfort foods. But not only the stew is named galinha caipira - the same moniker is given to what we'd call a free-range chicken. A redneck hen, in other words.

Not only hens are redneck or hillbilly in Brazil, though. They have a barnyard cousin known as the redneck pig (porco caipira). And this rural porker has become the flavor of the month - showing up in food magazines and Brazilian food blogs, being featured in food festivals and on chefs' menus. And just in time it appears, for the porco caipira was in serious danger of extinction until its culinary value was recognized by the food community and its genetic importance was recognized by Embrapa, The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation.

Pigs are not native to the new world. Ancestral pigs lived in almost all regions of Europe, Asia and Africa prior to the European colonization of the Americas, and were brought to the new world by European explorers and colonizers. Over time, many pigs escaped and became feral, often interbreeding with their American cousins, the peccary. Even those which remained domesticated interbred without thought of genetic purity, becoming completely naturalized to Brazilian conditions as a result. This is the porco caipira - a true mongrel, perfectly suited to Brazilian climatic conditions and topography.

In the past 50 years or so, the porco caipira had been losing ground to created-in-the-laboratory breeds of pork that grew faster, were leaner and overall more efficient as sources of meat. Brazil's large meat packers required farmers to provide them with the breeds that gave them the most lucrative product possible, and as a result, the pig that had always been Brazil's pig was in danger of extinction.

Coming to the rescue though, combining their efforts for different reasons, Embrapa and the culinary community seem to have snatched the porco caipira from the jaws of extinction. The agriculture department has recognized that the miscegenated porker is a valuable contribuent to the porcine gene pool, and cooks and diners alike have discovered that porco caipira just plain tastes better than factory pork. For the first time in a long time, the future of the redneck pig is looking quite rosy.