serpents also of such magnitude that they can eat an ox whole

Harpers occasionally brings me wonderful things - the rules of Texas Hold 'Em, commonly asked questions by recruits at an Al Q-- training camp ("Is it OK to poison the well of Al I-- as they have held the name of the prophet in vain and have just come here to play cards all the time"), the diary of an Argentinean rancher in the US (cows really taste better if they roam free in the pampas, like Australian cows) and now pigs.

Pigs, it seems, in the 90s, were heavily marketed as being "the other white meat" to health conscious folk who had settled on eating only chicken and fish. Super lean, super-fast-growing new breeds were used to achieve this, though with an unfortunate genetic predisposition to extreme nervousness. Hogs were known to drop dead of fright on hearing a car door slam shut too close to the barn. (Representative from Monsanto says, "But if a customer loses one of our pigs, we replace it"). And pigs that die stressed produce acid in their muscles, which causes the meat to lose its form and taste bad.

Look out for greyish meat with clearish liquid pooling in the supermarket tray. The Japanese, it seems prefer their pork to taste good, and are willing to pay more for it. Look for meat that is darker (the darker, the higher the ph, the less acidic) and has a fine edge where it has been cut.