Pig Tales

April 13, 2015
In the 2011 bestseller Tomatoland, Estabrook took on industrial agriculture, faulting it for destroying the crops we eat. In this fascinating volume, Estabrook turns his attention to hog farming and the natural history of the pig. Although he lives on 30 acres in Vermont and has some pig farming experience, Estabrook eschews the common “going back to the farm” storyline in favor of an investigative journalism tack. In elegant prose, he highlights various topics such as porcine intelligence, the pig’s ability to destroy a landscape, hunting wild hogs, industrial hog farming, conditions in livestock processing plants, and sustainable “retro hog raising.” Some of his points aren’t ground-breaking—he scorns factory farms that poison the pigs and the land, while praising local farmers who respect their pigs and their customers’ well-being and offer tasty and healthier pork—but he has an admirable ability to clearly portray each person with a connection to hog farming, swine research, or animal rights, creating a personal connections that go beyond facts and figures.

July 1, 2015

Estabrook (Tomatoland) is a three-time winner of the James Beard Award, which is considered the Oscar for culinary writers. His latest is an engaging investigation of how pigs are raised commercially for food. An excellent storyteller, narrator, and researcher, the author thoroughly documents the appalling conditions in which most swine are raised, conditions that result in food with inferior taste to that of animals raised humanely. The first chapter, "Hog Sense," traces the amazing intelligence of pigs. Several chapters detail David-and-Goliath-like conflicts between small-time lawyers and corporate agricultural giants, every bit as gripping as the epic battles in the films Erin Brockovich and Woman in Gold. Estabrook traveled widely, capturing through interviews the personalities of farmers, landowners, and many others, especially in Iowa and North Carolina. He describes how disposal of waste from pig farms makes life dangerously unhealthy, nearly impossible, for those living nearby. The writing, like the title, is clever, not without humor, and is also well evidenced with chapter notes and a useful bibliography. VERDICT Highly recommended for general readers, especially those interested in humane, agriculture, and food issues.--Henry T. Armistead, formerly with Free Lib. of Philadelphia

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2015
Former Gourmet contributing editor Estabrook (Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit, 2011) presents a journalistic expose of the pork industry with the same skill demonstrated in his exploration of the tomato industry.The saga is difficult to resist after the opening sentence: "A pork chop nearly got me thrown in jail." The threat originated from an irritated judge in a small-town Illinois courtroom, where the locals had filed a lawsuit against a gigantic pork producer running an industrial hog facility causing such a stench and other unpleasantness that their rural way of life had been diminished beyond redemption. Estabrook escaped jail time, but the judge expelled him from the courtroom due to a momentary exchange between the journalist and a plaintiff's attorney. Numerous important books have appeared in the past decade about the evils of industrial slaughterhouses. In that sense, Estabrook's book might seem like a retread, but it stands out because of its narrow rather than broad scope. He examines pork production only; no beef, chicken or sheep enter the narrative. The author is clearly appalled by the conditions he documents in a variety of large-scale facilities, but he presents the evidence with a subtle touch and rightfully allows the villains an opportunity to explain their practices. Heroes emerge in almost every chapter-e.g., hog producers who care about humane treatment, lawyers who represent rural residents on quality-of-life issues, government inspectors of slaughterhouses who try to enforce the law only to be castigated by their bosses, who are often in cahoots with corporate titans. A journey to Denmark showed Estabrook how sanitary, humane practices can produce excellent pork. Unfortunately, though, as in other realms, he discovered that many Americans don't see the value of learning from other nations. A thoroughly researched, deftly written piece of investigative journalism. Estabrook and his partner still eat bacon, but they are careful about the source of the pork.