Introduction to HACCP

Welcome to the heady world of HACCP! You civilians out there can just call it "Hassup" and appreciate that it stands for the sinister Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points.

You might also appreciate that, as with virtually every other concern that involves the disposition of dead animals, cows and pigs think it's the greatest thing since sliced meat!

In an exchange that neatly transforms a supermarket into a house of horrors, a pig confronts a physician/steer on his day off.

PIG: "I know you are an expert in meat. Maybe you can give me some advice on choosing fresh meat."

Okay. Already, we just… Huh? For the first of many times, we ask ourselves, "What purpose is served by having these characters portrayed by animals?" One is a shopper, the other a doctor. Why couldn't they be a human shopper and an equally human doctor?

DR. BULL: "Yes, we usually eat beef, but I feel like eating pork today."

Which makes the conversation approximately 23 times more awkward than it already was.

And now the science begins.

DR. BULL (pointing to the heavens, wellspring of everything holy and pure): "This is how we can have healthy and delicious U.S. meat."

Because "food" animals, destined to short, perfunctory lives before their transformation into full-blown consumer commodity, really care about this stuff.

Fast forward to Slaughter—Phase 2:
1. Clean carcasses with hot water.
2. Sterilize carcasses with organic acid.

PIG: "You are very welcome to join my US meat feast tonight! And many thanks for your explanation about HACCP."




And then: "Chilling."

Yes, it certainly is.

Watch the whole stilted thing for yourself, if you must.

(Thanks to Drs. Alan and Dan for the referral.)

Hawg Shoot

Look into the mind of an animal made mad by a wicked world. Oh, the pig looks well-adjusted with his sportsman's cap and his good-natured shirt. But then you get to the gun, and you pause.

No, it's not that the gun renders him something other than decent. No, no, that's not it.

It's that the gun underscores the pig's utter debasement. Understand: even among humans devoted to the barbecue, the pig is trusted with a weapon. Why, they've gone so far as to name the shooting competition after him! The thought that the pig might look on them with even a twinge of animosity, let alone vengeance or—heaven forfend—hatred, is as foreign to them as the speech of the Turk. His potential for violence so far outside any conception of the world they could ever entertain, they see him—even armed!—as their inferior, their slave.

The pig's sense of self, his fire, his heart, his soul—they've all been so stunted, so shamed and tamed, that he'd sooner turn the gun on himself than seek revenge.

And well they know it.







Addendum: This shooting contest is a part of the same annual barbecue festival we've discussed before.

Widespread Barbecue

Like the Pied Piper he leads them. But the pig's Hamelin (har har?) is the whole world! It doesn't get much more widespread than that!

To the devious pig, we're all fair game. The whole planet—all of humanity—will be seduced into following! Men, women, children! Every hue in the Rainbow of Man! They all want a piece of that pig!

But let's face it. It's not so hard to tempt the humans. To hear the barbekooks tell it, Eve tempted Adam with a scrap of bacon, so the pig's feat is nothing special. Still, the scope! The grand, world-encompassing scale of the thing!

Scampering westward across North America, his feet twinkling above the Pacific, the pig delights in his power! He's got them all where he wants them: hungry, armed, and increasingly desperate. The billions will make quick work of him.

Out of the Ashes Barbecue

From the ashes of its own pyre, it rises. Rising, born again, it transcends death. Overcoming death, it burns, swallowed by flame. From the ashes, again it rises.

"Most beings spring from other individuals; but there is a certain kind which reproduces itself.... When it has lived [as long as humans allow], it builds itself a nest in the branches of [a barbecue].... In this it collects cinnamon, and spikenard, and myrrh, and of these materials builds a pile on which it deposits itself, and dying, breathes out its last breath.... From the body of the parent [pig], a young [pig] issues forth, destined to live as long a life as its predecessor. When this has grown up and gained sufficient strength, it lifts its nest from the [barbecue]... and deposits it in the [garbage]."

Thus did Ovid mean to describe and eulogize the Humble and/or Supreme Pig, the eternally victorious and eternally defeated beast.

More to the point, could Suicidefoodism have a more fitting emblem?

Continually reborn, it scorns Death, renounces it. It kills Death. And yet it embraces Death. Without death, it is nothing. Its identity is inextricably bound up with dying (and being eaten). It exists solely to cease existing (and be eaten). Its ending is its triumph, and vice versa.

And so the Cult bears aloft its own mythology, inventing order from chaos, transmuting lunch from death-conquering livestock.

Holy & Oly's BBQ

They're just folks, Holy and Oly. You can tell by the overalls and baseball cap. And by the way they're completely unconcerned by and unimpressed with the kind of stuff those snooty innalekshuls are always yammering about. (Do they ever stop their yammering?)

All that swill about self-determination, autonomy, and the rest of it. Just a bunch of five-dollar words. If it doesn't put food on the table, Holy and Oly don't want to hear about it. All your theories and your perspectives and your isms. All due respect, you can chuck 'em all, perfesser.

These two are practical, you see. They've got their feet on the ground, thanks very much. Give 'em a plate of their grandmother's ribs and their grandfather's drumsticks and they're happy as any animals ever were. What's that? You say they're next? Well, of course they're next! Think they don't know that?

They've learned it's the simple things. Eating, getting eaten, and all that. That's all they need to make their own heaven on Earth.

Hot Racks and BBQ Stacks

We're not too proud to admit when we're flummoxed.

Friends, we are flummoxed.

The role reversal has got our head spinning. Instead of the "food" animal playing the part of the Edible Seductress—a reality we have, alas, grown familiar with—the pig almost appears to be calling the shots. So complete is the upending of the long-standing belief system that the hackneyed double entendre (racks for ribs and breasts) here serves to degrade actual women and not sows or cows.

Is this the day the animals have waited for? The day their shackles fall to the floor? The day the animals see their former superiors servile and scraping?

Well, no. Let's not get carried away. The pig is merely exhibiting a new motivation for self-sacrifice. The barbekooks have told him of the sexual pleasures he will sample—with humans!—if he only signs here on the dotted line. Like a deal with the devil, this arrangement hardly works to the pig's favor. He'll end up just as dead as all the rest, they who were promised nothing more than death.

Firehouse BBQ Cook Off

We don't know what's going on with the institution of animal-staffed fire houses, but something's not right.

If it's not sexual shenanigans, it's blatant conflicts of interests such as those on display at this firehouse.

You can imagine how it plays out: The alarm rings. The firefighters spring into action, stepping into boots, grabbing hats from hooks, and climbing aboard the trucks. The firehouse door rises, and the trucks scream into the streets.

The firefighters race to fulfill their oaths, to face danger and destruction in the name of protecting the lives and… property of…

Hang on.

These pigs are in the game for something else entirely! All their equipment, all their training, all their tireless labor—they're not out to preserve. They're out to destroy! When fire strikes at security and safety, they see it as an opportunity not to protect, or even to snatch the garment of prideful heroism, but instead to cook pigs! No doubt they will fling themselves upon the burning eaves and smoking rafters. So off they charge, ribs held aloft in valorous imitation of Perseus holding high the writhing head of Medusa!

Beware, unlucky homeowners. You might be better off with a hose and some friends with buckets.

Naptown barBAYq

Ahoy there, spirit of adventure! What ho, joy of discovery! Be addressed nautically, thrill of conquest!

How eager the pig is to seek out new lands where he and his kind can be butchered, barbecued, and washed down with beer!

Setting out from old Annapolis, into the Chesapeake, the pig speeds along merrily.

It stirs one. It intrigues one. Let's be honest: it disgusts one. Because we see how much energy the pig has for this, how much passion he puts into it. (He's so excited, his chef's hat is floating!) And when we consider what all of his passion is being funneled into—that is, death—it takes the wind out of our sails.

Festival of Cruelty 16

It's time. Every 50 posts, we leave the childlike world of illusion and visit the land of brutal truth. We turn our backs on the calming lie of complicit animals who are accessories to their own murders and face squarely an unending anti-animal sentiment. (Our most most recent visit was, as always, sobering.)

Whiskered Dog BBQ: For the crime of being born animals, the chicken and pig have been imprisoned, saddled with balls-and-chains, and then allowed to escape. And all of this, the whole sordid circus—the corrupt courts, the vicious penal system—exists only so that they can be chased down by a dog police officer on a motorcycle and a cleaver-happy little girl. Are we alone in wondering (again, again, and again!) why the animals have to be brutalized, tormented, and ridiculed prior to being slaughtered and butchered? Justice deferred is justice denied! Or, you know, injustice deferred is still injustice.

(Would you believe that two previous festivals of cruelty—this one and this one—also feature images of canine predators on motorized vehicles hunting down pigs and chickens? They might, in fact, have been created by the same artist.)


Jake Culpeeper's Cattle Company: Is Jake Culpeeper hiding his eyes, unable to confront his own cruelty?

No, we believe he is merely wiping away a single tear of mirth.

"Jump, cow! Lookit 'er go!"





Piping Hot: She must not only die. She must die a lingering death. She must die from a broken spirit, as much as from the severe burns, asphyxiation, or whatever trauma actually kills her in their enormous death chamber. The fans they have supplied are clearly intended as mocking imitations of mercy. Dying of thirst? Take this thimble topped to the brim with warm seawater. Dying of exposure to the freezing elements? Have a watchband. Starving to death? Here's a photo of a single kernel of corn. Likewise, the cow slowly dying within a makeshift torture apparatus.



Louie's Chicken Shack: Down at Louie's, they got a lumberjack/Quebecois fur trader who delights in hacking off the chickens' heads out back. They don't even have to pay him. He just shows up, sharpens the axe, and gets to it. When he's ankle-deep in heads, he wipes down the blade and goes home. It's a sweet deal for everyone.







Freestate Smokers: Free state, huh? They sure do have a sense of humor out in Maryland. It's not so free for the "food" animals. Sure, they're free to burst out of the smokers. They're free to be wracked with fear and anxiety. But mostly they're free to shut up and die.

Heavenbound BBQ

Let us take a moment from the concerns of the day to remember all that we do for pigs.

There are the trivial things, the earthly things, almost contemptible for their worldliness:

The feeding, the (temporary) housing, the (grudging) medical care.

But look higher! Cast your gaze to the spiritual fulfillment of the pigs. For it is here where humankind's drive to do right by pigs really shines! By killing and eating pigs with such care and gusto—and with an admirably monstrous frequency—we free them from this world of muck and mire. Free, free, so many pigs free! More than a billion pigs a year! It's monumental, an operation alight with the zeal of a million missionaries.

We launch them to their eternal reward, so that they might cavort in the very bliss we so assiduously deny them down here.

Pork Chop on a Stick

It's all here. This one photograph embodies all the horror of the movement—Suicidefoodism—we have devoted these last years to documenting. An infected ideology smiles back at us from the photo.

The pig, about to become not merely food, but fun food, novelty food, carnival food, looks on with such good humor, such a gentle nature, that we should be shamed and driven to flee the vicinity of Rosemount, Minnesota. Knowing that his whole life has been a joke, still the pig encourages us with his eyes. "Take my chops," those trusting eyes seem to say. "Skewer them and eat up. Have a good time!"

What would it take for you to see yourself this way, as a mass of would-be meat wedges waiting only for convenient handles?

(Thanks to Dr. Jeff for the referral and the photo.)

Big Daddy's Q'n Crew

It's the ultimate expression of no-nonsense motivation. The pigs are challenging you. Do you care about pig meat as much as they do? Do you want to see them dead as much as they do? Are you as uninterested in their fate as they are?

Leave the guesswork to the weekend warriors. These guys here are seasoned professionals.

Or, well, maybe the two little pigs are petulant teenagers forced by their dad to work at carcass-cleaning and pig-cooking. We don't pretend to have all the answers.

We just know that these guys are heavily invested in the whole dying thing.