If I was a pig, and I was president, the first thing I'd do would be to ban The Omnivore's Dilemma.
I have a friend -- let's call him PJ -- who'd been a vegetarian for over a decade. Then he read The Omnivore's Dilemma -- which, if you haven't read it, is manifesto of the local-food movement that culminates in a self-sourced meal starring a locally shot feral pig -- and in short order got a hunting license, bought a gun, and started learning how to make salami, bam bam bam.
A couple weeks ago, PJ and my other friend -- let's call him Aviday -- made a hunting date. Except the night before, PJ got violently ill. Aviday -- who'd done nowhere near the same kind of preparation -- decided to continue on alone. He drove to Big Sur, spent the day bushwhacking without luck, and then as the sun flirted with the horizon in the dusky loaming -- a husky boar, at 100 yards. He squinted down the iron sights, held his breath, steadied the steel, exhaled, and with a gentle squeeze of the trigger, turned the boar into bacon.
Driving home, it occurred to Aviday that he had a 200-pound boar in the backseat of his Golf, slowly stiffening with rigor mortis, and no idea what to do with it. He ended up cutting it into quarters, putting the chunks in garbage bags, and driving around the city to friends' houses at midnight: "Hey man, can I put this in your freezer? It's, uh, pig."
And PJ and Aviday are not isolated instances. A friend, a promising young bureaucrat at the California Public Utilities Commission, now sports an "I'd rather be hunting" belt buckle.
We've heard a lot about the hook and bullet crowd becoming active environmentalists. This book is turning environmentalists into hook and bulleters.
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Comments
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SMLowry Posted 5:19 am
14 Jan 2008
I know most hunters are nothing like my father was. I, on the other hand, have never fired a gun despite my father's desire for me to learn, and I have no intention to learn now. That said, I find it hard to believe that a vegetarian and/or an environmentalist would read a book on local foods and decide to go out and shoot wild meat. I'm not saying it hasn't happened, but how widespread can this be? As Aviday discovered, dealing with a 200 lb dead critter of any sort isn't easy. I hope he gutted it right away and hung it to bleed out. (I learned this from my father, not personal experience). Otherwise the meat wouldn't be good to eat (so Daddy said). And unless you know what you're doing, and have a really, really good, sharp butcher knife, you take your critter to a butcher (with whom you've made prior arrangements). Please tell me this story is an early April Fool's joke.
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Easterbunny Posted 5:29 am
14 Jan 2008
I lost it at the point where you said a locally sourced meal might feature a wild pig. I don't know what sort of vegetarian "PJ" is (or was), but no self-respecting vegetarian I know would suddenly start hunting pigs just because of some new crank manifesto.
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joeblueskies Posted 6:45 am
14 Jan 2008
BTW, without going back and rereading the book, I believe that Pollan was fairly clear on the fact that his 4th meal was not a viable option for most Americans to provide for their nutritional needs in our urbanized supermarket world. He also had a great deal of respect for individuals who still possessed the skill set necessary to procure food from nature, and then to turn it into something wonderful to share with thier fellow beings, rather than using them to offload a bloody mess in a garbage bag.
Bacon, the gateway meat.
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sindark Posted 6:47 am
14 Jan 2008
a sibilant intake of breath
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sindark Posted 6:48 am
14 Jan 2008
a sibilant intake of breath
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sindark Posted 7:15 am
14 Jan 2008
"A very different concept of efficiency [from those in factory farms] sponsors the hog heaven on display here in Satalin's barn, one predicated on what he calls "the pig-ness of the pig." These pigs too were being exploited - in this case, tricked into making compost as well as pork. What distinguishes Salatin's system is that it is designed around the natural predilections of the pig rather than the requirements of a production system to which the pigs are then comformed. Pig happiness is simply the by-product of treating a pig as a pig rather than as a "protein machine with flaws..."
You may want to actually read books before panning them in blog posts.
a sibilant intake of breath
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JennB Posted 7:20 am
14 Jan 2008
I just remember how shocked I was when, as a radical environmentalist teenager, I found that my friend who hunted know a lot more about the habitats and migration of animals than I did. Hunting can be an amazing means of slowing down and truly submitting to the rhythms of the natural world.
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David Roberts Posted 7:22 am
14 Jan 2008
grist.org
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javaearth Posted 7:48 am
14 Jan 2008
vegetarian killing a pig - really? - erm, I think most people have no idea what food is now a days, nor what kinds of food their bodies needs to use to full capability. Heck, people don't even use their bodies to the full capability!
Sorry I fail to see the green, funny, enviro side to this little story!
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Pangolin Posted 7:50 am
14 Jan 2008
I personally know several Nature Conservancy land managers and state and federal forest rangers and they are unanimous in their advocacy of the responsible termination of wild boar. The suckers are rototillers with feet and they don't ever, ever, take days off.
So go take that hunter safety course. Practice up with your rifle or bow. Get your hunting license and permission from the land owner or manager and come get 'em. There are more than enough wild boar in California and the local hunters aren't making much of a dent. They get BIG too so be prepared.
Death is part of nature's plan also. Otherwise things stack up and the big critters eat all the smaller ones.
Put the Carbon Back
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wiscidea Posted 8:02 am
14 Jan 2008
Feral pigs are considered an invasive species and inflict a great deal of damage on fragile ecosystems. By protesting the hunting of feral pigs you condemn members of numerous other species to death. Feral pigs are especially hard on streams and wetlands. Their wallows contribute to erosion of stream banks, introduce excess sediment, and encourage algal blooms that eventually die and, depleting the water of oxygen, suffocate fish. If you are going to eat meat, feral pig would probably be an environmentally sound choice.
Only an idiot would take up hunting for the first time simply because he read Michael Pollan's book. Maybe starting with a hunter safety course, purchasing a large freezer, and finding a mentor might be a better place to start.
Unfortunately, the planet is populated by idiots who impulsively do a lot of things without giving much thought to the consequences... like introducing domestic pigs where the local floral and fauna have not evolved to cope with their destructive behavior.
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wiscidea Posted 8:12 am
14 Jan 2008
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Adam Browning Posted 8:37 am
14 Jan 2008
Get Some Sun: http://www.votesolar.org
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sindark Posted 9:18 am
14 Jan 2008
Your post was not funny and was remarkably poorly informed. Insulting a good book because you have hapless friends doesn't demonstrate good judgment.
a sibilant intake of breath
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joeblueskies Posted 11:14 am
14 Jan 2008
Bacon, the gateway meat.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:42 pm
14 Jan 2008
This is an example of what I would call a feeding frenzy. A pious comment draws blood and starts a cascade of them. And look at that strawman over there getting thumped on (the one that said you dissed Pollan's book). Life in the blogosphere.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 3:35 pm
14 Jan 2008
The one with the bow said, "I just shot a wild pig".
I said, "Wow, I guess the wildlife guys will be shocked, there was a reader question on feral pigs near here recently in the paper, the DNR wildlife expert said there aren't any here."
They came back with a few friends to find it the next day. I saw his friend out there on the trail and he said they found it wounded and shot it with a 44 magnum, the bullet bounced off the shoulder bone.
It was 135 pounds. Very dangerous and destructive to the ecosystem as well. Wild pork and venison sausage, now that's real food.
There is a wolf pack in the area, they will help control this invasive species as well as overpopulated beaver. Wolves are the only canines strong enough to break into beaver lodges.
The beaver overpopulation devestates the forest. Human predation of wolves caused the beaver population explosion.
The right motivation, food and eco balance, and the spiritual act of becoming one with the wilderness food chain. That's the main thing.
The ideal situation is to learn as a youngster under the guidance of a more experienced hunter, who takes wilderness to heart.
In the case of invasive species or overpopulation caused by human intervention it is right for humans to restore the balance as best they can.
The conservation congress is going to consider a wolf hunt in public meetings this April here in northern Wisconsin. THAT will be quite a battle!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:08 am
15 Jan 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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mihan Posted 3:53 am
15 Jan 2008
In his section on eating roadkill and other "found" animal protein (bugs, etc) his friend who started a roadkill 'zine was a former vegan. I believe one of the VTOs (vegan-to-omnivores) even had "vegan" tattood on his body.
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caniscandida Posted 5:20 am
15 Jan 2008
And there will be more deaths involved, if, as Adam suggests, there is indeed a quiet movement growing among would-be Pollan disciples, including even erstwhile soft vegetarians like Adam's friend Pablo Jaegermeister. This is the first I have heard of such a movement; thanks to Adam for the information.
The topic is one of those that straddles environmentalism and animal-rights ethics. WiscIdea and Amazing are right to point out that feral pigs are an invasive species, very destructive and very hard to control. White-tailed deer are of course a native species, but they are similarly destructive on account of their being out of control in many areas of the US. Both pigs and deer make life very tough or even unlivable for many plants and animals. E.g., the presence of pigs is very bad news for ground-nesting birds.
That said, the problem of out-of-control deer, feral pigs and feral cats -- who also can be destructive, as has been discussed at length in a recent Ask Umbra thread -- always needs to be addressed with intelligence and compassion all round. The solution is never simply to send in an army of guys with guns to start shooting up the pigs, the deer and the cats.
Whether there is actually a movement of Pollanist neo-hunters growing, two things need to be said about Michael Pollan himself:
IIRC, from the Kill-the-Pig chapter of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" which was excerpted a while ago in the New York Times Magazine, Pollan went out hunting only after consultation and training with friends of his who are hunters, and one of whom is a butcher and chef. He would certainly not encourage the kind of misadventure that Pablo Jaegermeister ("Master Hunter") and Aviday (pig-Latin for "David," apparently; get it?, pig-Latin?) got into, nor can his chapter serve as any kind of model for such neo-hunting.
Pollan used some highly questionable ethical reasoning to justify his killing of the pig. He seems to have argued as one who already is interiorly convinced of the rightness of killing animals and eating their meat, and who now applies his cleverness in a lawyer-like manner to defend that conviction. Jim Mason and Peter Singer argue against him in their useful book "The Way We Eat."
I like Michael Pollan a great deal, and feel he is doing very valuable work toward reforming the agriculture and food industry of this country. It is only with regard to this pig-hunt of his that I find fault with him.
As for those of us who are concerned about animal welfare, it is important for us to acknowledge that, while hunting is certainly not an activity that we can ever encourage as a good thing in itself, nevertheless those animals who have lived all their lives in freedom in the wild, and die quickly by a hunter's gun, are much better off than the countless animals raised and slaughtered in the meat industry. Those meat-eaters who hunt for all or most of the meat that they eat certainly do not deserve to be classified with the great majority of meat-eaters who have no regard whatsoever for the animals on whom they senselessly feed.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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naturemandal Posted 1:19 am
16 Jan 2008
I think that Adam should be scolding his friend for his foolishness, not the author Omnivore's Dilemma. I am glad he posted this, I found all the responses interesting and I am sure he turned a few people on to the book. I hope others that read it will put more thought into what they eat as I now do. I am sure that the overall effect of this book, despite the few PJs out there, is that a little pressure will be taken off our environment.
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mrdavidbarrie Posted 4:57 pm
01 Feb 2008
Advocates of 'local', 'seasonal' and 'authentic' cuisine are often up their own spring kohlrabi.
The Testament of 'local' and 'seasonal' in places other than the Holy Lands of Santa Barbara or Central London can mean that cat, rat and dog are on the menu.
It seems like blinkered chic to me for people to feel awkward about the combination of hunting and devotion to the cause of local and seasonal food culture - and this is where Pollan might be doing some kind of a service.
In Vietnam, dogmeat is locally reared, eaten only at the close of the lunar month and a modern-day expression of an historic rural and ethnic tradition of hunting for and eating wild dogs.
Anyone for steamed dog in shrimp sauce, rice flour and lemon grass?
More on this and other doggy recipes at http://tinyurl.com/33vfz5.
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