Pork Memoirs
PERSONAL STORIES ABOUT A COMPLICATED MEAT
Selected Press:
Pork Memoirs is an ongoing story project about pork and identity, and how our choices surrounding the pig often reveal our cultural backgrounds and worldviews.
While Pork may seem like just a common part of a hearty breakfast or a perennial darling of Haute cuisine, at its core the pig represents a paradox: after all, pork is a staple protein for a majority of the world yet taboo for the rest; it is a meat explicitly forbidden for Jews, Muslims and others while it is celebrated by fetishists and gastronomes.
These personal memoirs explore the struggles and celebrations of our often complicated relationship to the “other white meat.” Whether the pig nourishes us, taunts us, delights us or grosses us out, these stories offer a snapshot of how we, as pork eaters and non-pork eaters alike, choose to assert our identity in this modern world.
I was invited to speak at Zingerman's 4th annual Camp Bacon. I attended the Main Event and one of the workshops. It was a phenomenal experience that I'm still in the process of putting into words. As a non-pork eater, it was a particularly peculiar, yet quite meaningful time. Here are a few photos:... →
Throughout all the years of keeping kosher, the bacon cheeseburger lingered, greasily, on the periphery of my mind. It was accompanied by Pu Pu platters, with piles of bright pink spare... →
Which is why I was so surprised when Bubbe, my grandmother, recently divulged that she used to fry pork all the time. Zayde, my grandfather, after spending time in Cuba between... →
Inside was a large muddy pig. Ropes had already been tied to each of its legs and the four men in attendance had taken hold of one apiece. The pig let... →
C., like some other men I’ve dated or slept with, was fascinated by my Orthodox Jewish upbringing, about what I could or couldn’t do or at least used to not do.... →
A rabbi has an incredible hankering for pork and travels all the way to a restaurant in the next town to order a roast suckling pig - figuring no one he... →
Allan isn’t the big, burly man I expected; he’s maybe 5’8”, slender, kindly, with a twinkle in his light blue eyes. His passion surfaces when he speaks about his commitment to... →
