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You stunning swine.
swine n. , pl. swine . Any of various omnivorous, even-toed ungulates of the family Suidae, including pigs, hogs, and boars, having a stout body.
nellie, a hampshire from indiana is a clone
clone “offspring” pork chop from indiana
acorn-fed iberico pig in eastern spain
a proper carving jamonero with hoof properly up
chow time
Top two photos from Wired magazine [wired 15.11] discussing cloning. “The other other white meat”—it looks the same, it cooks the same, it tastes the same. but this pig, a Hampshire from Indiana name Nelly, is a clone. And cloned bacon? It may already be at your supermarket. The second photo deck copy reads “My fist-size chop is glazed in a sugary, thick-as-molasses marinade. It tastes better than anything I’ve had at a restaurant—moist, succulent, and wonderfully tender.”
There’s a big difference between a clone and the offspring of a clone, the offspring presumably being much safer for human consumption: many experts agree. Clones appear to have many abnormalities due to an accelerated gestation among other things. Whereas, a clone offspring resets chromosomes and erases the birth defects naturally.
Today, while the FDA has been reluctant to give a green light due to public opinion a cloning company executive says, ” The likelihood that anyone could credibly say ‘Our animals are not descended from clones’ is zero.”
The second two photos are from a magazine produced by the Spanish Institute of Foreign Trade. A little blurb about the area where these pigs are born and bred sounds, heavenly.
The dehesa, home to the Iberico pig, the last remaining free grazing pig in Europe, is a unique and valuable Mediterranean ecosystem. Years of adaption of man and beast alike have made its more than two million hectares of open cork, holm and gall oak forests and ecologically and economically sustainable system.
The production of cereal, combined with beekeeping, charcoal production and the complex free-grazing method for Iberico pigs and other native breeds of livestock—such as Retinta cows and Merino sheep–are the economic mainstays of the region. the lo-impact human activity allows the massive spread of land to remain virtually untouched for the benefit of wild species such as deer, wild boar, red-legged partridges or wood pidgeons and endangered species such as, to name a few, the Iberian Lynx, the Iberian Imperial eagle, the black vulture, and the Iberian stork.
The dehesa is also a valuable haven to many of plants and mushrooms, not to mention its role in sustaining flocks of birds from Central and Northern Europe on their yearly migration to South West Spain in the winter.
These were great articles and I wish I could offer links. Hope your interest was peeked to dig deeper.
authors Ben Paynter for Wired and Benjamin Jones for Spain Gourmetour See this post among others at Friday Ark #186
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Maureen Adams
April 11th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Friday Ark #186
We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….? Visit all the …