Unlike other barnyard animals, which pull plows, give eggs or milk,
or grow wool, a pig produces only one thing: meat. Incredibly
efficient at converting almost any organic matter into nourishing,
delectable protein, swine are nothing short of a gastronomic
godsend,yet their flesh is banned in many cultures, and the animals
themselves are maligned as filthy, lazy brutes.As historian Mark
Essig reveals in Lesser Beasts , swine have such a bad reputation
for precisely the same reasons they are so valuable as a source of
food: they are intelligent, self-sufficient, and omnivorous. What's
more, he argues, we ignore our historic partnership with these
astonishing animals at our peril. Tracing the interplay of pig
biology and human culture from Neolithic villages 10,000 years ago
to modern industrial farms, Essig blends culinary and natural
history to demonstrate the vast importance of the pig and the
tragedy of its modern treatment at the hands of humans. Pork, Essig
explains, has long been a staple of the human diet, prized in
societies from Ancient Rome to dynastic China to the contemporary
American South. Yet pigs' ability to track down and eat a wide
range of substances (some of them distinctly unpalatable to humans)
and convert them into edible meat has also led people throughout
history to demonize the entire species as craven and unclean.
Today's unconscionable system of factory farming, Essig explains,
is only the latest instance of humans taking pigs for granted, and
the most recent evidence of how both pigs and people suffer when
our symbiotic relationship falls out of balance.An expansive,
illuminating history of one of our most vital yet unsung food
animals, Lesser Beasts turns a spotlight on the humble creature
that, perhaps more than any other, has been a mainstay of
civilization since its very beginnings,whether we like it or not.
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