In the tiny village of Zambujal, set back from the coast in the heart of the Algarve’s rural east, pigs outnumber people by 10 to one. This is hardly a challenge – the human population is only 15. We’re miles – and a world – away from crowded Albufeira; until recently, a tourist in this location would have caused more comment than if one of those 150 pigs had launched itself into the clear blue sky and flown. Now, things are beginning to change. Word has spread, and visitors are making the drive into these rural foothills to feast on the finest pork products in the region.
Nine years ago, Rui Jeronimo gave up his banking job in Faro and started to farm pigs on 18 hectares of land inherited from his grandfather. It’s hilly, dry, and at times almost barren-looking, with terracotta-tinged soil dusted over hard, granite bedrock. But the hardy Alentejano black pigs – you can tell them by their slender ankles, slim enough to fit in the circle of your finger and thumb – thrive here, feasting not only on their allocated kilo of corn or barley each day, but on what they forage from the land: roots, figs and acorns.
