Tea at Trianon: Wild Boar: Lean & Rich

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Wild Boar: Lean & Rich

From D'Artagnan:

The wild boar is an Old World species that existed since before the Ice Age. Evidence suggests that the wild boar, ancestor of the domesticated pig, was in human association perhaps as early as 13,000 B.C. Native wild boar can be found throughout Northern and Central Europe, the Mediterranean and as far south as Indonesia. In many of these cultures wild boar meat has figured prominently in the traditional diet.

The pigs that Spanish explorers first brought to the Americas were likely of the Iberian breed, a small, lean, tusked pig with a straight back, long narrow snout and small bristles. These first pigs adapted well in their new environment and many found their way to freedom, creating a population of feral pigs in the Americas.

Populations of wild boar were later introduced to North America for hunting in the 1890s, and again in several phases during the first half of the 20th century. Though they began on hunting preserves, some wild boar escaped and mated with feral descendants of domesticated pigs. So the wild boar of today are usually a hybrid breed, with characteristics of both Eurasian boars and feral pigs. The USDA requires that the meat from these animals be labeled as “feral swine,” because the breed is indistinct. (Read more.)