Bama Mini-Pig

The Bama mini-pig (Bama xiangzhu) is a long-domesticated local breed of Bama Yao Autonomous County, Hechi, in northwest Guangxi, and is regarded as one of the finest of China's xiangzhu (fragrant-pig) breeds. Bama is a Yao-majority county long famous for its concentration of centenarians: in November 1991 it was named the world's fifth 'home of longevity' by the (privately founded Japanese) International Natural Medicine Society, and it is commonly promoted as a 'county of longevity' — context that lent the breed its provenance and renown rather than any proven health effect of the meat. In March 1995 Bama was designated 'China's Home of the Fragrant Pig' by a national special-products body, and in August 2005 Bama xiangzhu was granted national Geographical Indication product protection by China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

Done right, the roast pig shatters: a thin, glassy crackling that splinters under the tooth, backed by a sliver of rendered fat and meat so fine-grained it pulls apart tenderly, with a clean, faintly sweet pork fragrance and none of the barnyard rankness of ordinary pork. White-cut, the same meat is silky and just-set, the thin skin gelatinous, the flavor delicate enough to eat with little more than ginger-scallion or soy. Done badly, the skin turns leathery or blackens, the lean dries to cotton, or the fat sits greasy and unrendered.

A small, young, thin-skinned pig is what makes both textures possible. For the roast, the skin is scalded, then brushed with a 'pi shui' glaze of maltose and vinegar and air-dried until taut and dry: surface dehydration is the precondition for crispness, while the maltose supplies reducing sugars. Under heat the skin's proteins and those sugars drive the Maillard reaction to a caramel-brown crackling, and the abundant subcutaneous fat renders and partly oxidizes, throwing off small carbonyl compounds that deepen the browning and aroma; the thin skin and low, even fat let it crisp through without scorching. The animal is first roasted gently in a closed oven (low fire, around 200 degrees, roughly two hours) to render fat and set the meat, then finished over open flame to color the skin gold. For white-cut, the pork is poached just below a boil in seasoned stock so the proteins set and stay juicy without the muscle fibers tightening and toughening, which is what hard boiling would do.