Daily Blessings Organic Foods

Here is a fine example of suicide food's ability to blend in, to recede into the background, to pass under the threshold of our awareness. When you first behold Daily Blessings Organic Farm's logo—the idyllic, bovine mother-and-child scene—does anything seem amiss? Does it strike you as odd in any way?

Whose daily blessings are celebrated here? The people living in the shadowed house way in the background, or the cows front and center? Who are the protagonists in this little drama?

The cows, of course. This is about them. We are meant to identify with them. Their lives, their blessings, their hopes and dreams. This is just plain strange.

Of all the images to represent the idea of food's blessings, this one is most neatly—if needlessly, ludicrously—in accordance with suicidefoodist principles. The suggestion is that the cows have something to be thankful for, that every day is another opportunity to offer themselves up to the killing blow, to sacrifice themselves for the family in the little shadowed house. Even while she nuzzles her child, the cow thinks gratefully of the moment when—again—they will both be dead.

One might ask, "Yes, but what other image could Daily Blessings Organic Foods have used?" One hardly need dig deep to come up with a more suitable motif. Such as? Such as that hoariest of tropes: the family, seated at the table, heads bowed in humble prayer, offering up their thanks for the bounty of which they are about to partake. In other words: Why even show the (living) cow and calf when a more comprehensible image was closer at hand?

We will not infer an agenda, but will say only this: the Movement's goals are furthered.

D'Artagnan Foie Gras

The duck is dashing, his broad-brimmed hat sporting a festive plume. The sash hints at the official burgundy worn by the real d'Artagnan (that's Charles de Batz-Castelmore, Comte d'Artagnan to you).

It is easy to imagine our d'Ucktagnan in keeping with Michael York's 1973 portrayal: his young musketeer was brash but hapless, full of easy charm. The d'Artagnan duck embodies this same joie de vivre.

And just as the 17th century d'Artagnan served his lord totally—Louis XIV, the Sun King, le roi soleil—so this one serves the d'Artagnan brand of game and livestock meat products above all.

Yet something is missing from the portrait. Have you noticed? His feet are there. His legs. His wings. His back. His neck, his long, gracile neck. But what of his head? The duck is missing his head! However to account for this? We jest. Nothing could be simpler. The symbolism couldn't be more blatant.

They can't bear to look him in the eye. After ramming the feeding tube down that long, gracile neck time and time again, cramming it down his throat again and again, pumping in the grain until his liver is distended and diseased, they simply cannot bear to look him in the eye, lest they see in his exhausted gaze some trace of… what? Emotion? Misery? The preternatural power of the martyr?

(Grover Maurice Godwin, in his Hunting Serial Predators, relates this piece of "wisdom" from career killers who have learned to cover the faces of their victims: "Faces scream at you." How apt. They also accuse.)

And finally, the Suicide Food blog panel asked us to make the following statement:

While we find foie gras to be the foulest of all so-called luxury foods, our professional integrity demanded that we award only 1 (one) noose to the d'Artagnan logo. While grotesque—for what it glosses over, if not for what it depicts—its very bloodlessness, its graphic innocence, makes a higher noose-count unwarranted.

Grudgingly, we have honored their wishes.

Seaside Crab House

Oh, to be in Seaside Heights, New Jersey! The bustle of the boardwalk. The cheerful cacophony of tourists and assorted fun-lovers. The flavors and aromas wafting from a beachful of seafood joints.

But even in this festive, sun-blessed land, tragedy finds a foothold. Here, on the very premises of the Seaside Crab House, two crab lovers toast their love in the waning moments of their lives. He is dapper in his carapace-red hat. She is alluring as ever, her eyelashes the very picture of a blossoming femininity. They weep, but little. They clink their beer mugs, savor the last swallow, he hoping to fix this moment in his mind forever and beyond, she willing herself enough strength for the both of them.

This is the end. Perhaps their families have forbidden their love to flower. Perhaps, for reasons the heart can never understand, the world will not—cannot—honor their bond. She's too young. Or he's too poor. Who knows why? Whatever their story, each sheds one precious tear, the last gifts they will ever share, before they are joined forever in the boiling pot.

(It remains unclear why the Seaside Crab House would wish to identify so closely with the agony of star-crossed lovers, but when have we ever understood the motivations of the meat purveyors?)

An intriguing detail: The crabelle's semicircular "apron," as it's called (the structure on her abdomen), marks her as a mature female. Our initial impression—Romeo and Juliet in crustacean form—might need revision. Oh, the tragedy of the May-December romance in a world of burdensome convention!

(Thanks to Dr. K. Hirst for the referral and the photo.)

Bowie BBQ Duel

Balanced on the knife's edge, our pig plays a dangerous game, a game so familiar to suicidal animals around the world.

In this case, the action takes place in Vidalia, Louisiana, as part of a festival held every year in honor of a giant knife.

Of course, the actual namesake of the festival is not a knife, but the man who made it famous: Jim Bowie—longtime Louisiana resident, land-scammer, sheriff-stabber, and temporary Mexican citizen. But our revisionist history is certainly more in keeping with the suicidefoodist mindset. For what better symbol to celebrate than the Holy Instrument, the actual means of pigs' death?

And while we all rightly revere the sporting pig, can we in good conscience allow this duel to go forward? What chance does the pig have against the gargantuan blade, armed as he is only with a cape fashioned from a tablecloth? Scrappy as he is, he's no match for the knife, and the best result he can hope for is medaling in the festival's Whole Hog category.*

Of course, the prospect of receiving the acceptance and approbation of pigmeat judges is probably enough to account for the delight on the pig's face. This is suicidefoodism's very definition of a worthy, honorable death. It's easy to imagine him trotting around the festival grounds, his tablecape fluttering behind him. "I'm blue ribbon material! I'm blue ribbon material!"

*Per BBQ Duel rules: "…[A]n entire hog, whose dressed weight is 85 pounds or more prior to the removal of the head, feet and skin, and which must be cooked as one complete unit on one grill surface. No portion or portions of the whole hog may be separated or removed, and subsequently returned to the grill, prior to or during the cooking process."

Sunnyside Deli

Please, calm down! It's not what you think!

It only appears to be a crazed (and wristless) gym teacher putting a chokehold on a cow, as a cleaver lurks with all the patience of death's grim inevitability.

It's an honest mistake for one uninitiated into the dystopian cabal of suicidefoodism. But see there? The cow's Mona Lisa smile? She's a willing and satisfied participant in this wince-making pas de deux. (But you were right about the butcher's wristlessness.)

Which makes this just another walk in the suicide food park. In fact, it's practically an archetype, the butcher and his cheerful charge. (Remember this blissful trio?)

Even more than a pig and his spit, the "food" animal and its butcher represents the basis of suicidefoodist society, the symbiosis that serves as a foundation for the entire enterprise. Yes, yes, of course, self-murdering animals always have been—and always will be!—a crucial component of suicidefoodism. But it is the butcher-butchered duality that forms the central fact of our beloved (and despised) Movement.

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

Pen-of-Fryers Contest

Is it just us, or is there something sleazy going on here? The three flirtatious hens, batting their eyes at us, knowing we're looking them over, hoping we'll select them for our special evening together? Do you, too, find the 1979 George C. Scott film Hardcore running through your mind?

The P-o-F Contest gets a whole lot more sleazy when you delve into its iffy milieu. For these chicks are not merely asking to be used and consumed. No, that's kids' stuff when it comes to the suicidefoodism movement.

The way this contest works is far, far more unnerving: Youthful entrants (this contest is for the under-20 set) will receive 15 actual, living chicks. (The avian kind.) After seven weeks, the entrants return with their three best fryers. These stables of chicks—the "pens" of the contest name—will be judged on "weight and uniformity," as well as any deformities they might be suffering from.

So! You plunk down your $10, walk away with 15 baby birds, and return seven weeks later so your downy charges—your favorites!—can be evaluated by the scrupulously clinical eye of the butcher. And then? And then? (You are drawn in, aren't you? This is the part where George C. Scott cried out, "Oh, my God! That's my daughter!")

According to contest materials: "Following judging the birds become the property of the contest and may not be taken home. The birds will be processed and donated to charity." Peculiar, isn't it, how euphemistic they get, when the express purpose of this event is to afford participants "the opportunity to gain a greater awareness and understanding of the poultry industry in Oregon." Surely the P-o-F Contest is the one place where we can all speak freely and frankly and eschew the use of such watered-down, keep-it-clean-for-the-civilians terms. We're all professionals here—these birds won't be "processed." They'll be killed, butchered, and eaten.

No wonder the hens are feeling a little frisky!

Helen Browning's Totally Organic

By now you have realized that the farm is the epicenter of the suicidefood movement. It is here where the need for rationalization is most urgent, and so it is here where the message is most potent. Farms are where it all goes down. Life, death, blood, gore, and the final bleats, kicks, and spasms. This can be dressed up only so much. No matter how "organic," no matter how "humane," how "free range," butchery is the order of the day.

Our first glimpse of Helen Browning's Totally Organic is a slice of pure absurdity: one pig on a motorcycle (!) and another watching on in bloated contentment. Their interlude occurs at night, with no farmers visible, no fences to keep them in. And yet, they play. Livestock at leisure. It's a farm farce: "It Happened at Happy Meat Farm."

The problems with Helen Browning's extend past the ridiculous imagery, however. We can see more of these problems and take their measure when we look at the farm's "Good Veal Guide." The Guide is a hymn of conscientious stewardship, of a deep and abiding love of animals. Here, let's see what the Guide has to say.

The zeal with which organic farmers pursue their animal welfare does not stop at dairy cows—they rear their dairy calves with the attention they devote to their other stock... The typical male dairy calf will never turn itself into a great beef animal, but good farming will produce superb meat from these livestock, at a younger age. (Emphasis added, dizzily.)

“…will never turn itself into a great beef animal.” There are worlds contained within that phrase. The key to an entire way of life, to its towering, teetering philosophy, can be found inside it. Imagine it! The sense of failure felt by the “typical” male dairy calf! How it stings, knowing he lacks the wherewithal, the grit, the starch to turn himself into a great, walking chunk of meat!

The Guide gushes on:

This is robust… mature meat, pink in colour, aged for flavour and a good bite. Food to grace any table. This is not veal from dimly lit crowded pens.

These animals enjoy a very full life, with plenty of space and light, inside suitable buildings over winter and outside at pasture for the rest of the year; a varied diet; and the care of a foster cow when available.

We want to remove the stigma attached to these animals. With a life span of six months, they live twice as long as even the slowest growing chicken; they have the same life span as a good organic pig, and longer than many organic lambs.

According to various sources, a cow with a less “zealous” upbringing could expect to live as long as 25 years or so. (The world-record holder appears to have lived for 48 years!) But Helen Browning’s crows about the “very full life” they afford their "veal" calves. Six months! Note that they compare their track record with others in the industry, not with people who have a vested interest in providing long life to animals.

Return to the pigs-with-motorcycle image. Does doing so make your mind feel funny? Do you wish there were something solid to hold onto? Such a loopy juxtaposition—the carefree pigs, the nocturnal motorcycle jaunt, and the calves granted their "very full" six months.

Of course, this sort of bracing dissonance is the suicidefoodist's stock in trade. H.B.'s is also the institution that stages Pigstock every year, an event featuring both spit-roasted pigs and, for the kids, a "petting pen."

And may we please take a moment to appreciate Helen Browning's clever dig against the cretinous vegetarians, those who—what perversity!—would rather not spit-roast the pigs after petting them?

Silver Leaf Lard

Back before the days of strong labor unions, in the genteel, yet gritty, 19th century, Chicago—hog butcher to the world—was home to a de facto caste system. Proletariat pigs propped up hogs of wealth. The upper crust lorded over the workers at the bottom of the heap, workers who could only dream their simple dreams of freedom.

Enter Silver Leaf Lard, the great equalizer! Through Silver Leaf’s divine order, pigdom is once again at peace. All are welcome at the lardworks. All are worthy.

While their divisions linger, now the classes are revealed for all their irrelevancy! They are the stuff of petty fashion, of bristle-thin loyalties. Yes, yes, it is left to some to pull the lardbucket carriage along. It is for others to enjoy the ride with their walking sticks and topcoats. And yet!

And yet all are going to the same place. The factory awaits them all, to render them all to their porcine essence. All are reducible to pure, sweet lard!

The draft-pigs, those six sturdy gallopers, strain at their traces. The passengers chatter excitedly. How impatient they are! Onward! Tally ho! How handsome the sows in their Sunday finery! How eager to face the culmination of their lives, wherein they will finally achieve their truest equality, their noblest brotherhood. If you prick them, do they not bleed? If you render them, do they not become a succulent, silvery, Swift and Company-blessed lard?

Lard! Lard! Glorious lard! Uplifter of the laborer. Humbler of the aristocrat. Scourge of the tyrant!

(Thanks to Dr. Pes for the referral and the image. Do yourself a favor and visit Pes's brilliant site.)

Special Report: Pig Logo Exposé 2

Entrailpreneurs might seem like a fiercely independent bunch, rolling out one clever, meaty image after another. It might seem that way, but—oh, greedy illusion!—it is not always so. There are times, disenchanted and disenchanting times, when their muses refuse to heed the call. Times when the tinder will not catch the spark of genius. The result is knock-off pig logos. Our mission requires us to reveal all the tawdry details.

And so, in the grand tradition of the world's first pig logo exposé, we present to you Pig Logo Exposé 2!














































(Clockwise from the top left: The Hog & Lamb Spitroast Co., Pig Out Catering, Steakout Catering, Boys and Girls Club BBQ, Happy Chicken, The Great American Barbecue Roadshow.)

Some observations:

Innovation and differentiation are confined, mainly, to color changes.

The Boys and Girls Club went all out with the addition of a knife.

Happy Chicken offers a design mystery: Why modify such an inappropriate illustration instead of creating your own from scratch? (At least copy an image emphasizing a chicken, fellas!) And, assuming that their cartoon version was not the original, what credence can we give their boastful "THE ORIGINAL" claim?

The first two rows of logos all bear a peculiar deformity: the right trotter (our right, not the pigs' right) is curiously sliced clean. In the Boys and Girls Club logo, this affliction is rectified (but notice that in this logo only, the trotters have but two, and not three, "fingers").

If we had to hazard a guess, we would say that, of the six logos shown here, Pig Out Catering (the upper-right corner) is the earliest exemplar, with the Hog & Lamb Spitroast Co. (the brown and orange) next in line. After that, our forensic instincts fail us.

Something, some full-trottered version, antedates the iterations with the amputated appendages—so slavishly aped—but what? Additional evidence is welcome.

(We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Dr. Mrs. Suicidefood in the preparation of this report.)








Addendum (12/16/07): The clip-art cavalcade continues!















(Left to right: Classic Rock 96.9 [eastern Virginia] Work Force Pig-Out, Phil's Pig Out BBQ, Lynn's Cakes)

Addendum 2 (2/15/08): Dave's Pit Smoked Bar-B-Que! That's 10. (Why has no one taken care of that hand deformity?)



Addendum 3 (4/20/08): Finally, someone retained the services of qualified surgeons. Our pig's left hand is once again whole! For now. (Image source.)









Addendum 4 (6/12/08): And that's a dozen. The urge to retain the "PIG OUT" tagline is well-nigh irresistible!















Addendum 5 (10/11/08): Big Daddy's Real Pit Bar-B-Que makes it thirteen.













Addendum 6 (12/07/08): Number 14—Red Roof BBQ. At last we see this pig's whole body. And it ain't pretty.









Addendum 7 (1/03/09): This sample shirt design for a family barbecue is number 15. Notice that the problem of handling the left hand has been neatly skirted by simply erasing the fingers.














Addendum 8 (2/01/09): Number 16 is the mascot for Etobicoke, Ontario's Bustin' Loose BBQ Team! See how they tackled the vexing Left Hand Issue? They flipped the pig so his left hand becomes his right hand!





And here, following right on Number 16's heels is Number 17! Now he's representing Smokin S Bar-B-Que.






Addendum 9 (2/04/09): And here's Jaymer-Q Southern BBQ with Number 18.












Addendum 10 (9/01/10): Has it really been more than a year and a half since we last checked in? The nineteenth specimen is here, looking a little shabby. A little lumpy. A little crazed. But come on. It's him. Take note of the characteristic clawlike hands, the eyeballs, the bandanna. The turnip-shaped snout! Oh, yeah. It's him.