Download or read book Home Is a Roof Over a Pig written by Aminta Arrington and published by ABRAMS. This book was released on 2012-07-05 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] down-to-earth memoir chronicling her family’s stint in the Chinese province of Shandong on the eve of the Beijing Olympics” (Publishers Weekly). When Aminta Arrington moves with her husband and three young children (including a daughter adopted from China) from suburban Georgia to Tai’an, a city where donkeys share the road with cars, the family is bewildered by seemingly endless cultural differences large and small. But with the help of new friends, they soon find their way. Full of humor and unexpectedly moving moments, Home Is a Roof Over a Pig recounts a transformative quest with a freshness that will delight. “A brutally honest and fascinating peek at life for an American family living in a foreign country. I was engrossed in the story as Arrington used her humor, and ultimately understanding and flexibility to survive, realize, and eventually love the contradictory land of China.” —Kay Bratt, bestselling author of Silent Tears: A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage “The power of Aminta Arrington’s Home Is a Roof Over a Pig is you can see both sides of the ‘China coin’ from it—something most people won’t get just by traveling through, or only by hearing about China in Western languages. Read it, it will help you dip into the real China.” —Xinran, author of The Good Women of China “A military wife turned ESL instructor’s sharp-eyed account of how the adoption of a Chinese baby girl led to her family’s life-changing decision to live and work in rural China . . . Candid and heartfelt.” —Kirkus Reviews

Download or read book Serious Pig written by John Thorne and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1996 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Thornes grew up on Yankee cooking, and they were moved to find that culinary tradition alive in saltwater Maine. In "Here", the first section of the book, they renew their acquaintance with familiar dishes - lobster stew, baked beans, blueberry bread-and-butter pudding - in both Down East vernacular eating places and home kitchens. The second part of the book, "There", traces Thorne's love affair with the cooking - New Orleans Creole and bayou Cajun - of southern Louisiana. Although his visits there were all too brief, la cuisine de Louisiane has continued to enchant him, as has the experience of being a stranger in a strange land. Finally, in the third section, "Everywhere", Thorne takes the measure of an American cuisine that, more and more, is learning to survive without any real roots at all. He comes to terms with white bread and American cheese, explicates the erotics of the hamburger and the chocolate chip cookie, follows the evolution of the barbecue out of the decline of the pig, and examines the role of cornbread in the formation of the American character. Cooks will find fresh inspiration in the book's many detailed recipes, from home-fried potatoes, fresh pea pie, and Moosehead gingerbread to an amazing concatenation of rice-and-bean dishes that reach from the American South through the Caribbean and all the way back to Africa.

Download or read book The Pig Book written by Citizens Against Government Waste and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The federal government wastes your tax dollars worse than a drunken sailor on shore leave. The 1984 Grace Commission uncovered that the Department of Defense spent $640 for a toilet seat and $436 for a hammer. Twenty years later things weren't much better. In 2004, Congress spent a record-breaking $22.9 billion dollars of your money on 10,656 of their pork-barrel projects. The war on terror has a lot to do with the record $413 billion in deficit spending, but it's also the result of pork over the last 18 years the likes of: - $50 million for an indoor rain forest in Iowa - $102 million to study screwworms which were long ago eradicated from American soil - $273,000 to combat goth culture in Missouri - $2.2 million to renovate the North Pole (Lucky for Santa!) - $50,000 for a tattoo removal program in California - $1 million for ornamental fish research Funny in some instances and jaw-droppingly stupid and wasteful in others, The Pig Book proves one thing about Capitol Hill: pork is king!

Download or read book Pigs Pork and Heartland Hogs written by Cynthia Clampitt and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the first creatures to help humans attain the goal of having enough to eat was the pig, which provided not simply enough, but general abundance. Domesticated early and easily, herds grew at astonishing rates (only rabbits are more prolific). Then, as people spread around the globe, pigs and traditions went with them, with pigs making themselves at home wherever explorers or settlers carried them. Today, pork is the most commonly consumed meat in the world—and no one else in the world produces more pork than the American Midwest. Pigs and pork feature prominently in many cuisines and are restricted by others. In the U.S. during the early1900s, pork began to lose its preeminence to beef, but today, we are witnessing a resurgence of interest in pork, with talented chefs creating delicacies out of every part of the pig. Still, while people enjoy “pigging out,” few know much about hog history, and fewer still know of the creatures’ impact on the world, and specifically the Midwest. From brats in Wisconsin to tenderloin in Iowa, barbecue in Kansas City to porketta in the Iron Range to goetta in Cincinnati, the Midwest is almost defined by pork. Here, tracking the history of pig as pork, Cynthia Clampitt offers a fun, interesting, and tasty look at pigs as culture, calling, and cuisine.

Download or read book The Good Good Pig written by Sy Montgomery and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2006-05-30 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In loving yet unsentimental prose, Sy Montgomery captures the richness that animals bring to the human experience. Sometimes it takes a too-smart-for-his-own-good pig to open our eyes to what most matters in life.” —John Grogan, author of Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog A naturalist who spent months at a time living on her own among wild creatures in remote jungles, Sy Montgomery had always felt more comfortable with animals than with people. So she gladly opened her heart to a sick piglet who had been crowded away from nourishing meals by his stronger siblings. Yet Sy had no inkling that this piglet, later named Christopher Hogwood, would not only survive but flourish—and she soon found herself engaged with her small-town community in ways she had never dreamed possible. Unexpectedly, Christopher provided this peripatetic traveler with something she had sought all her life: an anchor (eventually weighing 750 pounds) to family and home. The Good Good Pig celebrates Christopher Hogwood in all his glory, from his inauspicious infancy to hog heaven in rural New Hampshire, where his boundless zest for life and his large, loving heart made him absolute monarch over a (mostly) peaceable kingdom. At first, his domain included only Sy’s cosseted hens and her beautiful border collie, Tess. Then the neighbors began fetching Christopher home from his unauthorized jaunts, the little girls next door started giving him warm, soapy baths, and the villagers brought him delicious leftovers. His intelligence and fame increased along with his girth. He was featured in USA Today and on several National Public Radio environmental programs. On election day, some voters even wrote in Christopher’s name on their ballots. But as this enchanting book describes, Christopher Hogwood’s influence extended far beyond celebrity; for he was, as a friend said, a great big Buddha master. Sy reveals what she and others learned from this generous soul who just so happened to be a pig—lessons about self-acceptance, the meaning of family, the value of community, and the pleasures of the sweet green Earth. The Good Good Pig provides proof that with love, almost anything is possible.

Download or read book Lesser Beasts written by Mark Essig and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike other barnyard animals, which pull plows, give eggs or milk, or grow wool, a pig produces only one thing: meat. Incredibly efficient at converting almost any organic matter into nourishing, delectable protein, swine are nothing short of a gastronomic godsend—yet their flesh is banned in many cultures, and the animals themselves are maligned as filthy, lazy brutes. As historian Mark Essig reveals in Lesser Beasts, swine have such a bad reputation for precisely the same reasons they are so valuable as a source of food: they are intelligent, self-sufficient, and omnivorous. What’s more, he argues, we ignore our historic partnership with these astonishing animals at our peril. Tracing the interplay of pig biology and human culture from Neolithic villages 10,000 years ago to modern industrial farms, Essig blends culinary and natural history to demonstrate the vast importance of the pig and the tragedy of its modern treatment at the hands of humans. Pork, Essig explains, has long been a staple of the human diet, prized in societies from Ancient Rome to dynastic China to the contemporary American South. Yet pigs’ ability to track down and eat a wide range of substances (some of them distinctly unpalatable to humans) and convert them into edible meat has also led people throughout history to demonize the entire species as craven and unclean. Today’s unconscionable system of factory farming, Essig explains, is only the latest instance of humans taking pigs for granted, and the most recent evidence of how both pigs and people suffer when our symbiotic relationship falls out of balance. An expansive, illuminating history of one of our most vital yet unsung food animals, Lesser Beasts turns a spotlight on the humble creature that, perhaps more than any other, has been a mainstay of civilization since its very beginnings—whether we like it or not.

Download or read book Pig written by Brett Mizelle and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Known as much for their pink curly tails and pudgy snouts as their low-brow choice of diet and habitat, pigs are prevalent in popular culture—from the Three Little Pigs to Miss Piggy to Babe. Today there are more than one billion pigs on the planet, and there are countless representations of pigs and piggishness throughout the world’s cultures. In Pig, Brett Mizelle provides a richly illustrated and compelling look at the long, complicated relationship between humans and these highly intelligent, sociable animals. Mizelle traces the natural and cultural history of the pig, focusing on the contradictions between our imaginative representation of pigs and the real-world truth of the ways in which pigs are prized for their meat, used as subjects in medical research, and killed in order to make hundreds of consumer products. Pig begins with the evolution of the suidae, animals that were domesticated in multiple regions 9,000 years ago, and points toward a future where pigs and humans are even more closely intertwined as a result of biomedical breakthroughs. Pig both examines the widespread art, entertainment, and literature that imagines human kinship with pigs and the development of modern industrial pork production. In charting how humans have shaped the pig and how the pig has shaped us, Mizelle focuses on the unresolved contradictions between the fiction and the reality of our relations with pigs.

Download or read book Wild Pigs in the United States written by John J. Mayer and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2008-03-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With an estimated population of at least 500,000 distributed across nineteen states, the wild-living pig (Sus scrofa) is the most abundant free-ranging introduced ungulate in the United States. Until now, however, little has been known about the wild pig on a national scale, despite its abundance and significance as both a pest and a game animal. Whereas previous studies have been regional in scope, Wild Pigs in the United States is the most comprehensive work available on wild pig history, current status, comparative morphology, and other subjects important to the species' management and control. The information in this volume relates to the country's three prevalent wild pig types: the introduced Eurasian wild boar, the feral (once domestic, now wild) hog, and hybrids of the two. The first section of the book presents a history of wild pigs in this country-their origins; when, where, and by whom they were first introduced; and their subsequent dispersal. John J. Mayer and I. Lehr Brisbin, Jr. then develop specific criteria, based on taxonomic principles, for differentiating between the wild pig types. Employing numerous illustrations, graphs, and tables, they analyze and compare morphometric and discrete characters of the skull, external body dimensions and proportions, coat colorations patterns, and hair structure and form. A report on the status of wild pig populations in the United States (as of 1991) completes the volume. To profile the present ranges, habitats, and morphotypic makeups of wild pigs, the authors conducted two national surveys--in 1981 and 1988--among private individuals and federal and state personnel. Their report is also based on other recent wild pig studies and additional information from survey respondents. The book's reference section is particularly valuable, for its lists all sources consulted as well as the names and addresses of authorities the authors interviewed or with whom they corresponded. Aided by the book's wealth of current data, biologists and wildlife managers can make informed decisions about such issues as state versus private ownership of wild pig populations and the status of wild pigs as pests or game animals. In addition, hunters and sportsmen, zoologists, and even specialized historians and archaeologists will find Wild Pigs in the United States useful and informative.

Download or read book The Pig War written by Emma Bland Smith and published by Astra Publishing House. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is a true story of how the great nations of America and England almost went to war in 1859 over a pig--but learned to share instead. In 1859, the British and Americans coexist on the small island of San Juan, located off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. They are on fairly good terms--until one fateful morning when an innocent hog owned by a British man has the misfortune to eat some potatoes on an American farmer's land. In a moment of rash anger, Lyman Cutlar shoots Charles Griffin's pig, inadvertently almost bringing the two nations to war. Tensions flare, armies gather, cannons are rolled out . . . all because of a pig! Emma Bland Smith's humorous text and Alison Jay's folksy illustrations combine in this whimsical nonfiction picture book that models the principles of peaceful conflict resolution.

Download or read book The Pig War written by E C Coleman and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2009-09-30 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a plot to grace any comic opera, the 1859-72 'Pig War' broke out when an American living on a quietly disputed small island in the Gulf of Georgia shot a British pig he found rooting up his garden produce. The authorities on nearby Vancouver Island and the military leadership of the adjacent Washington Territory both felt they had good reasons to escalate a trivial incident into a full-blown war between the United States and Great Britain. Soon, American soldiers found themselves looking down the barrels of the Royal Navy cannon. Whilst both the British and the Americans continued to threaten and bluster, Royal Marines and US soldiers settled down on the island to a round of social events, including sports days, combined dinners and even summer balls. Despite the outbreak of the American Civil War, and British intervention on the Confederate side, the hot-heads were restrained and, eventually, it was decided that the problem should become one of the earliest examples of international arbitration. The German Kaiser was brought in and - from the British point of view - came to the wrong decision. Set against the framework of US attempts to gain control of the whole North American continent, The Pig War is a highly readable account of a little-known episode in Anglo-American history.

Download or read book The Pig War written by Mike Vouri and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historian Mike Vouri has selected nearly 200 historical images to illustrate the history of the Pig War on San Juan Island in Washington state. Each image has a descriptive caption.

Download or read book Pig Perfect written by Peter Kaminsky and published by Hyperion. This book was released on 2005-05-11 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cookbook author and naturalist Peter Kaminsky shares his quest for the perfect pigs and pork recipes, sharing his love for pork dishes and his efforts to find the perfect grilling techniques.

Download or read book Pig Piggy Pigs written by Bonnie Bader and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn about teacup pigs in this fact-and-photo-filled book that captures all the charm of these adorable animals! This new nonfiction reader will teach kids about the breed, how to train them, and how to take good care of these unique animals.

Download or read book Pig Tales An Omnivore s Quest for Sustainable Meat written by Barry Estabrook and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-05-04 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Splendid Table Staff Book Pick of the Year "Estabrook, a reporter of iron constitution and persistence, has dug deep into the truth about the American pork industry without losing his sense of humor and humanity." —Christopher Kimball, Wall Street Journal In Pig Tales, New York Times best-selling author of Tomatoland Barry Estabrook turns his attention to the dark side of the American pork industry. Drawing on personal experiences raising pigs as well as sharp investigative instincts, Estabrook covers the range of the human-porcine experience. He shows how these intelligent creatures are all too often subjected to lives of suffering in confinement and squalor, sustained on a drug-laced diet just long enough to reach slaughter weight. But Estabrook also reveals how it is possible to raise pigs responsibly and respectfully, benefiting producers and consumers—as well as some of the top chefs in America. Provocative, witty, and deeply informed, Pig Tales is bound to spark conversation at dinner tables across America.

Download or read book Esther the Wonder Pig written by Derek Walter and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2016-06-01 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the bestselling tradition of Marley and Me, a funny, heartwarming and inspiring true story of how one adorable little pig changed her owners' lives forever. When an old friend called animal lover Steve Jenkins and begged him to take in an adorable 'micro' piglet, he couldn't say no. Although he knew his partner Derek would be far from thrilled about him adopting yet another stray, the idea of owning a cute little piglet was impossible to resist. Little did he know, that decision would change his and Derek's lives forever. Esther turned out to be beyond adorable but there was nothing 'micro' about her, and Steve and Derek realised that they had signed on to raise a blooming full-sized pig. Within three years, tiny Esther tipped the scales at a whopping 270 kilograms. After some growing pains and a lot of pig-sized messes, Steve and Derek made another life-changing decision: they bought a farm and founded the Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary, where they could care for Esther and other animals in need. Esther the Wonder Pig follows Steve and Derek's excellent adventure - from reluctant pig parents to two of the world's most successful and beloved animal rights activists, alongside the magnificent Esther, a social media star with millions of fans around the globe.

Download or read book Boll Weevil Blues written by James C. Giesen and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-08-01 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the 1890s and the early 1920s, the boll weevil slowly ate its way across the Cotton South from Texas to the Atlantic Ocean. At the turn of the century, some Texas counties were reporting crop losses of over 70 percent, as were areas of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. By the time the boll weevil reached the limits of the cotton belt, it had destroyed much of the region’s chief cash crop—tens of billions of pounds of cotton, worth nearly a trillion dollars. As staggering as these numbers may seem, James C. Giesen demonstrates that it was the very idea of the boll weevil and the struggle over its meanings that most profoundly changed the South—as different groups, from policymakers to blues singers, projected onto this natural disaster the consequences they feared and the outcomes they sought. Giesen asks how the myth of the boll weevil’s lasting impact helped obscure the real problems of the region—those caused not by insects, but by landowning patterns, antiquated credit systems, white supremacist ideology, and declining soil fertility. Boll Weevil Blues brings together these cultural, environmental, and agricultural narratives in a novel and important way that allows us to reconsider the making of the modern American South.

Download or read book The Male Chauvinist Pig written by Julie Willett and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, a series of stock characters emerged to define and bolster white masculinity. Alongside such caricatures as "the Playboy" and "the Redneck" came a new creation: "the Male Chauvinist Pig." Coined by second-wave feminists as an insult, the Male Chauvinist Pig was largely defined by an anti-feminism that manifested in boorish sexist jokes. But the epithet backfired: being a sexist pig quickly transformed into a badge of honor worn proudly by misogynists, and, in time, it would come to define a strain of right-wing politics. Historian Julie Willett tracks the ways in which the sexist pig was sanitized by racism, popularized by consumer culture, weaponized to demean feminists, and politicized to mobilize libertine sexists to adopt reactionary politics. Mapping out a trajectory that links the sexist buffoonery of Bobby Riggs in the 1970s, the popularity of Rush Limbaugh's screeds against "Feminazis" in the 1990s, and the present day misogyny underpinning Trumpism, Willett makes a case for the potency of this seemingly laughable cultural symbol, showing what can happen when we neglect or trivialize the political power of humor.