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Killing The Pig: The Annoying Foodie Obsession With Pork
I'm tired of pork. There, I said it. Pork belly, bacon, pulled pork, pork shoulder, pork terrines, charcuterie, head cheese, roasted suckling pig, porchetta, pancetta. I'm ready for this macho eating craze for all things piggy to finally go away.I'm a very pork-patient sort of guy. Homer Simpson said it best in expressing his empuzzlement when his daughter Lisa became a vegetarian, asking what she could and couldn't eat:
Homer: "What about bacon?"
Lisa: "No!"
Home: "Ham?"
Lisa: "No!"
Homer: "Pork chops?
Lisa: "No! Dad those all come from the same animal!"
Homer: "Yeah right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical, animal."
Homer is right. But it's time take an electrical prod to the head of this porcine passion. The straw that broke the pig's back for me was when I noticed last week a restaurant down the street from my apartment in New York's West Village opened up called Swine. It's not all pork on the menu but it reads like a farce – a caricature unto itself – of 2012 menu trends, right down to the name of the restaurant itself.
As a nation increasingly obsessed with food our fetishization of pork is holding us back, arresting the development of our palates. Where's the beef? Let's go back to boring chicken for a while. What ever happened to tofu?
Oh, there are other food trends I'm tired of, too. See: deviled eggs, Brussels sprouts, bone marrow, beets, anything fried in duck fat, short ribs. I'm even tired of foie gras. And don't get me started on the insanity that foodies exhibit every spring at the first (or second or third) sighting of ramps at a farmers market or on the menu of a restaurant (it usually goes something like this, "RAMPS! OMG, RAMPS!" and can be found on the social media of your choice.
Oh, there are other food trends I'm tired of, too. See: deviled eggs, Brussels sprouts, bone marrow, beets, anything fried in duck fat, short ribs. I'm even tired of foie gras. And don't get me started on the insanity that foodies exhibit every spring at the first (or second or third) sighting of ramps at a farmers market or on the menu of a restaurant (it usually goes something like this, "RAMPS! OMG, RAMPS!" and can be found on the social media of your choice.
Food trends ebb and flow – that's why they're trends, after all. Tapas was all the rage in New York and other American cities in the last decade, crossing the edible Spanish threshold into cuisines that have no history of serving food on small plates; the most comical I saw was something called "Australian tapas." But this one, this proclivity for American-ish comfort food, is sticking around like bad leftovers left in the fridge during a long vacation. And it's starting to reek. We're in a recession, which means, like the big baby foodies that we are, we need to be comforted and held, spooned by porkliscious byproducts until the euphoric porcine food coma we put ourselves in takes us away.
For the record, I do think the "trend," or "movement" might be a better word, of sourcing the provenance of our food is a good one. And I hope it sticks around. But do we need the economy to vastly improve before we change our eating habits? I just want this nation of eaters to graduate from what has become the poster animal of the relatively recent obsession with food. Is that so much to ask? In the meantime, I'm going to walk down to Swine to see if it's still open.
Filed under: Food and Drink, North America, United States
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Charles Aug 10th 2012 11:02AM
How about we just go back to Meat (from any Source) and plain old white potatoes. Maybe a green salad with a tomato or two.
But if we did that what would happen to the Celebrity Chefs. Oh yeah, they might just go back to cooking decent food instead.
Edd Aug 13th 2012 11:23AM
you got it steak and potatoes. The fancy stuff truns me off. How about some squrrel, rabbit, blue gill or cat fish. American food.
Dave Aug 10th 2012 10:51AM
"I'm even tired of foie gras." Sigh... rich people problems.
Mike V. Aug 10th 2012 12:11PM
Americans have a weird way of hyper-focusing on certain things, then the love affair ends. Now that most people have the attention span of a gnat, I expect the pork love affair (obsession as noted) will wane.
Cook and eat good food; the best you can afford sourced from the people that love what they do. That's how I try to roll..
Joanne Aug 10th 2012 8:41PM
Don 't forget to add Kale to the list of current food obsessions . Imagine they 're pushing chocolate covered kale.When you have to add chocolate you 've gone to far.
david.elsner47 Aug 13th 2012 12:19PM
RAMPS?? What the hell are RAMPS?
Nardo Aug 13th 2012 11:55AM
Hey, David: your loss. You certainly aren't going to throw any water on my pork-loving (or tapas-loving) party.
Joe B. Aug 13th 2012 12:34PM
I can remember the day that I had to cut up Dobbie, into hams, etc. and hang them in a smoke house covered with salt, to cure and preserve the meat.
Take a small hatchet and chop the head of a chicken off. Pull feathers off, boil, or bake in the wood stove. Every meal was fresh and tasty. Drank raw milk, keep
cool in a spring. Made butter, had some hens, and cooked the eggs that you could taste, not like today. We grew all vegetables. Everything from asparagus
to Zucchini. Every thing was started with seeds, in a cold frame. The only thing
that was completely gross, was the out-house. I won't go into details, but I waited
until I "had",to go. I think we are headed back to that era. Make your own anything, called living organic.
john pezzullo Aug 13th 2012 2:12PM
all that from someone quoting the simpsons
BB Aug 18th 2012 7:16PM
I don't know why this is News? I rarely eat pork, but what is the big deal? In some countries people eat snakes, insects, Monkey and Goat! There are bigger things to complain about instead of Pork, so they must have needed something to fill the space today on a web page.
Emily Aug 18th 2012 10:28PM
I just ate goat for lunch today. raised from birth to slaughter on my farm high in the mountains. grass fed and finished with only some grain as a treat here and there.
goat is really common in the western and southern united states, and not just with minorities (not that there's anything wrong with that). try some, it's amazing!
BB Aug 18th 2012 10:56PM
I've lived over half my life in the Southern US.never saw goat on the menu, but owned them in the Midwest for milk. I lived in Portugal 2 years, they ate it, not me. I prefer fish, just not into meat anymore myself.
susan... sydney australia Aug 22nd 2012 6:47PM
i agree..last night in sydney australia...5 things on the menu... ears, nose, back, front...brisket. sydney is awash with 5-8 hour lamb..everywhere...or fish pies....everywhere...please can we have something else on the menu......i know its winter but.......try something fresh. it might do us good. pleeeeeeease.