Most food writers out there would likely find a more appropriate post title for their first entry in 2023 (something with resolutions perhaps, or jubilations upon entering an incremented calendar year), however this isn’t the food writing of most food writers.
The title quote is instead from Lord Of The Flies, a book which came up on New Year’s Day as we watched children play in the garden with sticks. “Piggy had it coming” someone quipped about the novel, and the infamous chant followed.
It suddenly stuck out to me that I see this tale in a different light now than I did as a boy. At school it is prescribed as a lesson in what would happen to young children if left unexposed to adult guidance and values. Yet an arrogant assumption lies here; that if a group of adults were similarly stranded, they over time would not disintegrate into equally brutish behaviour.
There is a sort of equation implicit in this interpretation, something like:
human nature + values → environment
The underlying idea being that over years of civilisation we have improved our values from one generation to another and in doing so made a more just environment for ourselves to live in. Therefore all it would take in order for those values to disappear would be the cutting of this long tie.
In Lord of The Flies, this ancient chord of knowledge is snipped in an instant when the boys are stranded on an island. Away from any adult presence, they are lost to the guidance of their elders and so their world quickly plunges into barbarism.
Yet I am actually more convinced of the inverse, that instead:
human nature + environment → values
There are some macro-historic examples that seem to prove this point to me.
Take the Roman Empire. For near 500 years of it running prosperously and stably, many of its values changed remarkably little. Despite the famous philosophers, poets and politicians dedicated to intellectual improvement, no-one nearly legislated freeing all the slaves (who made up about 15% of the population) nor the incorporation of women into power and the workplace.
In fact the abolishment of slavery and serfdom only starts to take off globally from the 19th century, when machinery began to fulfil the jobs that previously required forced labour. Additionally we see huge advances in gender equality when widespread contraceptives appear in the 20th century, along with the first menstrual tampon (this must be the first food blog to ever use the words “menstrual tampon”).
This is not to make a nihilistic case saying there are no true or better values or that there are only relative beliefs and differences in circumstances. The values we have today are better, not only because they are fairer but because they are truer; morally excusing the inequalities of the past often depended on bogus sexist or racist theories.
Nor is this to undermine the efforts of those who strived to change our values, without whom we never could have got here. It is only to say that these beliefs and systems, while fought for, have also been afforded to us, and if the environment were to change drastically again, they could revert.
In Lord of The Flies, it is the environment that rapidly shifts too. If adults were put in a similar spot, extricated from material abundance and formal power structures, it could only be a matter of time until similar descent into violence.
The pig would be killed, and the blood drunk.
The natural segway to a recipe for this post would then be for a plate of bacon and black pudding, but there’s something else that’s calling me. A question in fact surrounding the very notion of eating such a thing.
What are the values we have surrounding killing animals for meat and how does the environment affect those? With abundant plant foods available all year round now, we can be afforded a vegan diet and it should be no surprise that more people are turning to it. However I remain skeptical that most of us will ever show restraint enough to forfeit pleasures like steak, molten cheese and fried eggs.
What I do think will happen depends instead on the progress of lab grown meat. If we imagine a future where they take hold at a cheaper price than the farmed alternative, it would slowly become the de-facto source of meat consumption. This is already starting to happen and it stands within reason we could observe its complete realisation within the next ten years. When that occurs, petitioning to stop wholesale slaughter will skyrocket (while the industry will likely collapse) and the values we hold around killing farm animals will shift dramatically, becoming more aligned with our general values about killing. From 2033 we may look back at the 70 billion livestock killed globally in 2022 and wonder what the hell were we thinking?
While chewing on our petri-dish produced pork chop, of course.
Note on Sam’s Good Stuff Hiatus
Sorry to have abandoned you loyal readers for so long, all I can say with certainty about it all is that it wasn’t you, it was me. Having taken a little time to step back and recuperate however has given me vision for 2023 and what SGS will bring then. This will all to be explained more fully in the next post, and I hope you’re as gosh darn excited about that as I am.
A No Pig Blood, Red Lentil Soup
After a Christmas and New Year where I have typically been responsible for the death of many a beast, I’m often drawn toward the simple and soothing throughout the quiet of early January.
The trick to a good red lentil soup is to go easy on the spicing, number of vegetables, amount of tomatoes… everything basically. Less is more; we’re talking lentils flavoured by tomatoes, not tomato soup with lentils. We’re talking spiced lentils, not lentilled spices… and so forth.
Ingredients
200g red lentils
1 onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 heaped tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon paprika (not smoked!)
Fresh mint and/or parsley
Lemon
Olive oil
Rinse the lentils (or soak in a few batches of water) until the water is clear. This is an optional step, but I do it as I hear it makes them more digestible.
Pour a few tablespoons of oil in a pan on medium heat and sautè the onion and carrot. After they are translucent & softened (5-10 minutes) add in the tomato paste and spices and cook another minute.
Add the lentils and about a litre of water (it’s not so important to get this quantity of water right, you can cook it down - or add more - later to get your desired consistency). Bring to the boil, add a very generous pinch of salt and then turn down to a simmer. Cook like this for 40 minutes until the lentils are fully softened and have disintegrated a bit. Either serve as is, or use a hand blender to partially or fully blitz the whole soup (your call hombre). I’m also known to use a whisk and just break down the lentils a bit with that. Taste and adjust for salt & pepper.
Serve with a drizzle of oil, freshly chopped herbs and a wedge of lemon to squeeze on top.
Kill The Pig, Drink Its Blood
As ever, a thoroughly enjoyable post. As a granola munching vegan, I particularly appreciate your thoughtful comments on the animal-industrial complex. I do, however, have to question your literary criticism.
Golding was writing in the immediate aftermath of WWII. He was scarred by his own experiences in the navy and horrified by the easy barbarism of supposedly 'civilised' nations. You say that Lord of the Flies is a cautionary tale about what might happen if children are left unchecked by the guiding hand of adults and their social values. But the novel ends with the surviving children being chastised by a naval captain for their savagery, before he looks out to stare at his own warship on the horizon. Surely Golding is actually saying the opposite of what you claim: that the ancient cord of 'civilisation' is little more than lipstick on a pig?