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Published May 2015
336 pages
Genre: Science, Health and the Environment
Publication Information
Barry Estabrook, author of the New York Times bestseller Tomatoland and a writer of "great skill and compassion" (Eric Schlosser), now explores the dark side of the American pork industry. Drawing on his personal experiences raising pigs as well as his sharp investigative instincts, Estabrook covers the range of the human-porcine experience. He embarks on nocturnal feral pig hunts in Texas. He visits farmers who raise animals in vast confinement barns for Smithfield and Tyson, two of the country's biggest pork producers. And he describes the threat of infectious disease and the possible contamination of our food supply. Through these stories shines Estabrook's abiding love for these remarkable creatures. Pigs are social, self-aware, and playful, not to mention smart enough to master the typical house dog commands of "sit, stay, come" twice as fast as your average pooch. With the cognitive abilities of at least three-year-olds, they can even learn to operate a modified computer. Unfortunately for the pigs, they're also delicious to eat.
Estabrook shows how these creatures are all too often subjected to lives of suffering in confinement and squalor, sustained on a drug-laced diet just long enough to reach slaughter weight, then killed on mechanized disassembly lines. But it doesn't have to be this way. Pig Tales presents a lively portrait of those farmers who are taking an alternative approach, like one Danish producer that has a far more eco-friendly and humane system of pork production, and new, small family farms with free-range heritage pigs raised on antibiotic-free diets. It is possible to raise pigs responsibly and respectfully in a way that is good for producers, consumers, and some of the top chefs in America.
Provocative, witty, and deeply informed, Pig Tales is bound to spark conversation at dinner tables across America.
"Starred Review. A thoroughly researched, deftly written piece of investigative journalism." - Kirkus
"In elegant prose, [Estabrook] highlights various topics such as porcine intelligence, the pig's ability to destroy a landscape, hunting wild hogs, industrial hog farming, conditions in livestock processing plants, and sustainable "retro hog raising."
"A beautiful and clear-eyed examination of the world of pigs and pig farming. With his engaging prose and soulful, riveting stories, [Estabrook] illuminates the complexities of the pig industry and the desperate need for reform." - Alice Waters, Chez Panisse
"Estabrook... documents the horrors perpetrated in America on this miracle creature, but he also describes the ways to break away from those horrors... Pig Tales appalled me, terrified me, and then filled me with hope." - Michael Ruhlman, author of Charcuterie and Salumi
"Estabrook tells two powerful stories here. The first is about the appalling ways in which Big Pig raises animals... The second is about how skilled animal husbandry and respect for the intelligence of pigs produces ... a far more satisfying life for farmers and pigs alike." - Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, and author of Eat, Drink, Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics
"Estabrook turns his keen journalistic eye to pig production ... [and] provides balance in the engaging tales of farmers and processors who are thoughtful and eminently human... [A] must-read." - Cathy Barrow, author of Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Kitchen
"Pig Tales is...a window into the world of pigs and pig farmers that every American omnivore needs to read. You will never look at a piece of pork in quite the same way." - Ruth Reichl author of Delicious!
This information about Pig Tales was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
A three-time James Beard Award winner, Barry Estabrook is a former contributing editor at Gourmet magazine and the author of Tomatoland, a book about industrial tomato agriculture. He blogs at politicsoftheplate.com and lives in Vermont.
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