The Singular Beast: Jews, Christians, and the Pig (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism)
Author: Claudine Fabre Vassas
Throughout history, the breeding, slaughter, and consumption of the pig has been the inspiration for both religious and secular rituals and taboos. In The Singular Beast, a daring and original account of the role of the pig and its relationship to Jews in European Christian culture, Claudine Fabre-Vassas argues that these practices defined the very boundaries between Christians and Jews. Chronicling the cultural and religious significance of a creature that occupies an ambiguous place in the families of those who raise it - as a member of the family and a potential meal - The Singular Beast reveals the continuing power of symbols to sustain or create ethnic identities. Fabre-Vassas details the folkloric beliefs and rituals that have been associated with the slaughter and consumption of pigs from the Middle Ages until today by both provincial and urban Europeans - such as the myth that Jews do not eat pork because their children had been transformed into pigs and the story that they crave the flesh of Christian children because they are deprived of pork. Ranging from early Christianity to the present, from Spain to Scandinavia, The Singular Beast is both a broad study of the extraordinary, complex role of the animal central to the diets and rituals of most European populations and a close historical analysis of anti-Semitism and the creation of real-life myths.
New Republic
[A] wide-ranging and stimulating book.
Times Literary Supplement
A stunning compendium of porcine and theological folklore. . . . With remarkable acuity, The Singular Beast shows how the pig, the Jew and the Christian have been locked in a fatal and macabre pas de trois for the past two millenniums.
David Gordon White
[A] masterful demonstration of the role of the pig as that animal which, because of its own natural and cultural anomalousness, came so powerfully to symbolize the dialectic of identity and difference obtaining between Christians and Jews.
New York Times
Fabre-Vassas argues that the cultural tension between those who did and those who did not eat pork helps set the stage for a murderous anti-Semitism. . . . Taking her cue from Claude Levi-Strauss, [she] studied the culinary habits of southern France, and the way in which the pig began to be associated with the Jew in the anti-Semitic imaginings of peasant culture, and by implication the rest of Europe.
Janet Liebman Jacobs
Fabre-Vassas's work in particular illuminates the fear of otherness that, as a dimension of human consciousness, underlies the relationship between those who are persecuted and those who persecute . . . The extensive and detailed research in The Singular Beast provides ample evidence of how Jewishness became imbued with all manner of hateful traits. . . . Through ethnography and text, Fabre-Vassas offers a rich and nuanced protrait of anti-Semitic beliefs and practices that remained deeply embedded in twentieth-century European society.
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Camp Cook's Companion: A Pocket Guide
Author: Alan S Kesselheim
The Camp Cook's Companion offers a savory alternative to the bland, just-add-water fare to which most outdoor types resort after a long day in the woods. Acclaimed outdoor writer Alan Kesselheim serves up a delightfully varied menu of more than 150 recipes, made from both fresh and dehydrated ingredients. Proving one needn't sacrifice flavor for utility, Kesselheim describes easy-to-prepare recipes for everything from French toast to Basil Wrathboned chicken. He also offers the choice of a number of preparation methods from simple one-pan offerings to creative Dutch oven repasts and baked goods.
Alan S. Kesselheim is a contributing editor to Canoe & Kayak and has written for Backpacker and Outside, among other leading magazines. He is also a columnist for Big Sky Journal and the author of eight critically acclaimed books, including The Wilderness Paddler's Handbook and Trail Food: Drying and Cooking Food for Backpackers and Paddlers. He has canoed more than 10,000 miles--alone, with groups, with his wife, Marypat, and with their three children--and has eaten well on every trip.
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