Pigs with Problems
Hi Guys!
Did you ever wonder what goes through a pig's head when he knows that his destiny is to be made into lard? Well, it turns out that most pigs are up for that, at least according to N. K. Fairbank and Company!
Back in the 1880s and 1890s, Fairbank was one of the biggest producers of lard around! You're probably thinking "lard, who in heck wants that??" Well, before they invented vegetable oil, you needed lard to cook with! If you were going to fry anything, you had to have lard, or put in layman's terms, pig fat!
Well, pig fat and killing animals are pretty gross, no doubt! And if anybody hated gross things, it was the Victorians! So how do you sell the idea of pig fat? You make a joke out of it, that's how! You create a whole advertising campaign out of these anthro pigs whose only desire in life is to die! So they can be made into grease for cooking!
To make it even funnier, you mix the idea of pig fat with classy stuff, like art and literature! "The Slave of Grease" is actually a pun on this famous nineteenth-century statue by Hiram Powers:
It's called "The Greek Slave." Get it? "Grease" ... "Greece?" HA HA HA, jeeze! I gotta get myself under control before I whiz in my pants!
Nothing says pig fat like Lord Byron! At least that's what they thought back in the 1820s, when the guy was still alive! By the 1880s, though, Byron was tame and his once-dirty poetry was perfect for family-friendly advertising!
I gotta admit, these Fairbank guys weren't very good at rhyming. 'Course working "Fairbank lard" into every sentence probably ain't easy!
See what I mean? Well, I give them points for trying! And I guess others did, too. If you know where to look for 'em, you can find these old trade cards all over the place! Fairbank did a great job of turning a gross thing into clever dark humor! I wouldn't exactly call it truth in advertising, though.
Except maybe for this -- That's just a pig and we don't know what it's thinking. Even so, I bet it's safe to say it doesn't want to be lard!
*******
One of my fascinations over the years was with patent medicine advertising. I got hooked on the history of advertising in general back in junior high, and the patent medicine stuff was the highest form of B.S. Funny how they work those two ears of corn into so many of these -- they Byron ones excepted.
ReplyDeleteI love patent medicine stuff. There was a guy up here in Maine, Dr. Fitzgerald, I think his name was, who specialized in "clairvoyant" medicine among other things. Apparently this stuff was infused with spirit-power and cured almost anything. Of course all those medicines did that, but still...
DeleteI noticed that business with the corn -- Must be a trademark of some kind?
Drink the draught, will cure you
DeleteThat bids consumption fly
Take Dr. Swayne's Wild Cherry
And do not, do not die!
That jingle is engraved into my mind for all time.
I don't think it's so much a trademark as a symbol that their hogs are fed corn, not slops, guanteeing purity. Which is, shall we say, a load of hogwash.
I grew up with Crisco. My first experience with lard came when the family visited Mom's aunt and uncle in West Virginia. It was 1966 and I was 9 (and impressionable). I thought the idea was disgusting, but then I tasted the fried cornmeal mush. Yes!! Also, eggs fried in bacon grease -- every morning for almost a week. That was also the summer Mom introduced me to Dr. Pepper, which was still regional and not available in Connecticut. Mom brought home a case of it!
Nice! Hard to imagine how prevalent tuberculosis was back then and what a slow death it was. I guess the only thing that those consumption "cures" did was to calm down the cough.
DeleteI remember Crisco -- My mom used it all the time until Wesson crept into the kitchen. Food fried in lard sounds extravagant -- Most I've ever had is lard-fried potato chips, which are head-and-shoulders above all others. Funny about Dr. Pepper -- It seems to be one of those things that you either love or hate, kind of like Fresca. I never developed a taste for it, but I have a friend who would kill for it!
Back in the day you grew corn, fed it to pigs, and then walked it to market. The other option was to make whiskey out of it. Whiskey moves under it's own power also.
DeleteLard is the basis for Mexican food. Manteca is sold in 5 gallon drums at all grocery stores. This is why the cheaper Mexican restaurants are so good to eat at, you haven't had frijoles or tamales unless lard has been used in the preparation. So remember, parents, love your kids. Love your lard!
ReplyDeleteAha! That probably explains why, try as I might, I cannot replicate the taste of real Mexican food. I use the corn tortillas, the Mexican cheese and imported sauces... still, failure!
DeleteAt least they made even lard amusing and entertaining!
ReplyDeleteFor the humans!
DeleteHa! They certainly did their best!
DeleteInsult to injury. We not only eat them, we represent them as delighted to be tomorrow's bowel movement. We're all savages!
DeleteFrom all I've learned, the swine would be delighted to return the favor. Remember that bit in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy falls into the pig pen? I understand it's frequently cut.
DeleteAlso: Russian woman 'eaten by pigs' after collapsing
You are absolutely correct. It's us or them!
Deletehttps://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/171/american-short-fiction/3456/pigs-is-pigs/
ReplyDelete