Heritage Breed Pigs
In 2008, after 20 years of working in Tanzania, I changed the focus of my research. It sounds pretty dramatic to shift from the study of social transformation and cultural practice in East Africa to the study of pigs and pork in North Carolina, but many of the themes are quite similar. I remain interested in understanding how values change, and how such values are embodied, anchored in social space, and experienced by people participating in these changes. That, and I’m back to writing about food, as in my first two books
I do my research now among farmers and chefs and consumers in my current hometown, in and around Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I’ve been working with Eliza MacLean at Cane Creek Farm in Snow Camp, NC, and at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market. Eliza is renowned, a rock star among pig farmers, for her work recuperating the Ossabaw Island Hog, seen below. Here’s a link to an album of pigs!
All of this work asks about why pigs and pork have become so much a part of the “local food” and “Slow Food” movements. Why are former vegetarians excited about eating pasture raised pork? Why do so many high end restaurants feature pork belly and terrine (which would have been cheap meats a generation ago) on their menu? In short, what does the way value pigs tell us about the way we value food today?