The best American ham, as everybody knows, is the Virginia, cut from hogs that roam the woods, live on acorns and beech nuts and are thoroughly healthy.
The attitude of the ancient Britons toward the pig was one almost of reverence, not only because of its utility in the larder, but because it fed on the acorns from the sacred oaks.
In those days all British pork was no doubt similar to the meat of the young wild boar. Civilization, as in so many other things, brought on a temporary deterioration which caused pork to be despised and considered fit only for those who had not the means to buy something better; and it is only now that we are coming to realize fully that the fault was that of the farmers who, by refusing to give the pigs fair play, made it impossible for them to come up to the highest epicurean standard as regards Flavor.
The Boar
According to high geological authority, the boar, from whom our domestic pigs are descended, was coeval with the extinct species of the mastodon and the dinotherium, and "hence must be regarded as the most ancient of our domesticated animals."
An aristocrat, in other words, is the pig! He is selfish, like most "aristocrats"—that cannot be denied; but he is clean—even his mud baths are taken merely to cool off or to scour his skin. Trainers, moreover, will tell you that he is one of the most intelligent of animals.
Pig brains are good to eat, too—better than calves' brains, but are usually sold as calves' brains because that's what the ignorant purchaser asks for. And pork, young, tender, and not too fat, is good all the year round, not only in the months which have an R in them.
GROUSE AND GRILLED SOLE.
Wild boars no longer roam the forests of England. Sportsmen do their pig-sticking in the jungles of India. But venison in season is still in evidence, and the hare will never be extinct, though he now comes to London chiefly in shiploads from Australia.