Swabian-Hall Pig

The Swabian-Hall, also called Schwäbisch-Hällisches or Mohrenköpfle, is a German breed of lard pig from the city of Schwäbisch Hall in Baden-Württemberg in south-western Germany. It began in 1820 when King William I of Württemberg started a breeding program that crossed imported Chinese Meishan pigs with German Landrace stock to raise fat content, a cross that succeeded especially well in the Hohenlohe region. It is a large pig, white in the middle with a black head and rear and narrow grey bands where the colors meet. Litters are large, averaging more than nine piglets. The breed once made up ninety percent of the pigs kept in Baden-Württemberg by 1959, but demand collapsed in the 1960s as the market turned toward leaner meat, and by 1984 only seven breeding sows and two boars survived; dedicated farmers rebuilt the population from there. Since 1998 Swabian-Hall pork has held Protected Geographical Status in the European Union, and around 1,500 registered sows exist today, prized by gourmets for darker, richly flavored meat.