Le Vrai Menage

Hanging on like grim death to his cylindrical totem of cured meat, the pig ponders the meaning of his life. He quickly realizes—it's as plain as the meat in his loins, really—that without the promise of death, his life holds no meaning whatever.

The salami-sausage thing (why demean it with anything as puny as a label?) is the pig's life preserver. It is his flesh apart from his own flesh. The meat is sans rival. Nothing is better.

Nothing buoys him more surely on his journey along life's brackish course, and nothing promises to deliver him more quickly into the ocean of death.

Septemberfest Wild Game Cook Off

And here you thought only those effete playthings, those (snort) domestic animals, dreamt of self-annihilation. We've told you over and over that it's all animals! From decadent livestock to the beasts cursed with boundless freedom, all the animals long for the end.

Take this rugged fellow. Fresh from the forests that team with abandoned creatures, his coat still redolent of Nature's neglect, he made his clumsy way to the bright lights of civilization.

There, to tend the grills, to hold aloft the savory morsels bequeathed by the proud animals who have already succumbed to their dearest desires. And one day—dare he dream?—he might find himself upon those dutiful tines.

Gaspar's Sausage

Do you know why we love this little Portuguese pig?

Because he's just so decent. So real.

Let other brands have their educated pigs. Their high and mighty pigs. Their ivory tower pigs. Yeah, and while all that's going on, Gaspar's pig will be out there working for a living.

He embodies the values we all used to take for granted. Nowadays, when we see someone showing up on time and rolling up his sleeves and caring, we roll our eyes. "Sucker," we say with a sneer. "Chump." Well, this chump's getting it done. He doesn't need the limelight. We don't even know his name, but we already know him well enough to know that's not what this is about.

This is about doing what you say you're going to do. This is about punching in and delivering. This is about getting yourself killed and encased in sausage skins made of the lining of your own intestines. Because no one's going to do it for you.

Actually, they would. Without being asked, even. But don't tell him that.

(Thanks to Dr. Trent for the referral and the photo.)

Smoked Meat Festival

This gentille sausage, glimpsed in his glorious death throes, is the emblem of the Ville Platte, Louisiana, smoked meat festival, better known as Le Festivale de la Viande Boucanée.

Standing in his airless chamber of choking smoke, the flames roaring on the floor, Pierre Sausage grins an unguarded, lopsided grin. Truth be told, he's having the time of his life. Well, what brief span of life still remains.

What might have been a scene of horror becomes an endearing vision of unabashed delight. The door is open, but the sausage isn't going anywhere.

This is exactly where he wants to be, his skin crisping, his flavor peaking. He's as happy as a kid in a clubhouse. This is his fort. His sanctum, his temple, his church. The place of his fullest being. As he undergoes his baptism by smoke, Pierre achieves his fondest hope.

Rudolph's Reindeer Meat

Rudolph—the decent, selfless reindeer beloved by millions of boys and girls—has an important message:

"When you order reindeer, you make Santa smile."

Yes, Santa (Santa Claus, that is) would appreciate it if you'd order reindeer meat. He likes ordering reindeer. Get it? Ordering reindeer? Like, ordering them around? What a country!

And because Rudolph's such a doormat generous soul, this really is the most important thing he can think to share with you. Not "For the love of God, would someone please rescue me from what has become a nightmare of captivity and the ever-present stench of fear!" but instead "Don't forget to pick up some dead reindeer on your way home!"

Merry Christmas!

(Photo by Travis S.)







Addendum: Allow yourself to be haunted by this ghost of Christmas past. And this one, too, while you're at it.

The Great Wallingford Wurst Festival

It's an annual event in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle. From near and far, the sausages come to be eaten.

For many, this is the culmination of a lifetime of striving and struggling. Like other so-called undead foods—creatures once alive as animals and given a temporary new life in burger, nugget, or wiener form—sausages want only to die again. Perhaps the first time caught them unawares.

As pigs, they were ignorant of the mechanism of their own destruction. As cows, they missed the stun gun as they approached. As chickens, they may have known nothing of the scalding tanks. But now, as sausages, say, they know. They have shed their innocence. A world-wise understanding was extruded into their casings along with them.

They see it coming this time around. Which is why the Great Wallingford Wurst festival sausage relaxes so intently. On the grill, his flame-retardant Hawaiian shirt like a second skin, he fans himself, relishing his long undoing. This time, he can enjoy it.

Previously, we'd peeked in on pig fantasy camp.

Now we travel farther down the road toward sheer mental breakdown and arrive at sausage fantasy camp. Whether as cowboys—every pork product's dream—or boffo show biz-types, the sausages are "living" "life" to the fullest. For now.

Until their second death, so sweetly longed for, is upon them.

Anonymous Disemboweled Pig Butcher

As we did in the case of God Burger, we must disagree with the Internet's arbiters. They might know their business, but they don't know suicide food.

Failblog calls this a misfire. Hardly! It is perfection, effortlessly capturing the ethos of an entire repulsive way of life!

It's not just the pig's face, which, in its undeniable rapture, conveys the proper reverence for self-gutting.

It's also the sausages he pulls from his abdominal cavity, as though his anatomy were configured solely to provide his customers with maximum convenience. He opens a sterile slot beneath his apron, locates the sanitary sausages, and withdraws them. It's a simple procedure blessed by an unseen technology, as far from Nature's gory designs as anything in Suicidefoodland.

And they call it a failure. It's a masterpiece!

Hutton's Sausage

Outside their factory in New Zealand, these sausages—forgive us, these sizzlers, as the ID label indicates—are demonstrating true dedication to an ideal.

Hunkering down in a giant frying pan, they beam, they wink to passers-by.

(Or, at least, we think they're winking. Could that be the gleam from their monocles, instead?)

One throws his arm around his brother, who is slowly, deliciously rendered, converting himself into his elemental essence. Thus, the sausages reenact the seasonless cycle of life death.

(Thanks to Dr. Michael for the referral and photo.)

Brooklyn Pork Store

Let's get back to basics, shall we? His "royal" "highness," the poor pig in this logo, is characteristic of other regal "food" animals we've profiled. Compare him with this "common man" monarch and this kingly goofball.

The main point? They can call him the sausage king. They can make a big show out of setting a plastic crown on his head. But this pig is no king. Just look at him, his tongue wagging, his dimbulb eyes goggling. Him? Royalty? He's the only one who's fooled.

Even more than most suicidefoodist tableaux, this game—this conferring of mock majesty—is an elaborate joke. The whole place is rank with the condescension shown toward the simple pig. Look at him with his chintzy crown and clip-on bow tie. The king! Ha!

But he buys it. Bless his flabby brain, he buys it.

Rick Curtis Quality Meats

This mural is the very essence of sanguine. Bloody, yes, of course. It's painted on the wall of a butcher's shop, for crying out loud. The implication of blood is everywhere. The thing may as well have been painted with blood.

But, no. We mean the collegial scene. The gang is so darn cheerful, so content with their lot. The whole bunch is satisfied and easy-going, from the chicken getting ready to attack the dangling string of sausages to the pig enjoying sexual harassment at the hands of a malicious, grabby sheep. The butcher and the steer—look at the way they've flung their arms over each other's shoulder. These two, inexplicably, have managed to form a real bond of friendship.

We say inexplicably because the steer, in his living form, couldn't have been around much longer than the time it took to pose for the mural. We wouldn't have thought he could have made much of an impression on the busy butcher. Then again, the steer does look to be a character, what with his cosmopolitan ear- and nosering and his country-gentleman wheatstraw.

That they all—well, the four-legged and feathered among them—will be, you know, gone before you know it is hardly enough to dampen the mood. These are quality meats, of good character, made of strong stuff. They know their place. More than that, they take obvious pride in knowing their place. There they go, smiling, blushing, cavorting, sexually harassing, right up the end.

(Thanks to Dr. Fletch for the referral and the photo.)

Bobak's Sausage Company

Welcome back to the arcane world of athletic foodstuffs. Like the boxers and weightlifters before them, these international sausage competitors live in two different worlds.

In one, they are dedicated to the continual improvement of their physical forms, seeing in themselves the promise of potential realized. In the other—the one with which we are more familiar—they are dedicated to their own consumption.

And there, atop the grills, the two worlds join, becoming one warped world in which nothing will ever make sense again.

Italian Sausage made it to the top of the podium, German Sausage silvered, and Polish Sausage came in third. But you know what? For making it to the finish line and down into some guy's stomach, they're all winners!

(Thanks to Dr. Michelle for the referral.)






Addendum: Feeling as though you've seen something similar? Perhaps you have.

North Carolina Bar-B-Q

This scene is alive with narrative intrigue. After considerable scrutiny and concentration, here is where we've arrived:

Ma and Purvis Hog have absconded with the butcherman's wares. Ma pushes the sausage wagon along, a chain of links that used to be dear Cousin Hooter dangling.

Purvis, happy to have finally taken hold of life's jug, swings the picnic basket. He'll spin a jig, he'll dance a reel, when he finally makes the Herndon side.

And there, waving from his wheelbarrow is Junior, drunk again on mash and dreams. All he needs, after he's had a nip off old Cousin Hooter, is a little push onto the tracks to meet the 3:22 from Skeeter Junction square-on. It's the cycle of life in all its high-impact splendor.

It's really about getting yourself killed, cooked, and eaten. And maybe winning an award in the bargain. The people will choose—how they'll salivate and choose!—and Ma, Purvis, and Junior will go down smooth and smoky.







Addendum: Here is what we had to say about the 2007 Memphis in May festivities.

Meat in the Middle

This barbecue battle (a ritual well-known to suicidal animals) isn't proceeding along conventional lines. Comparing this with some other examples of the form (here and here), we see one obvious difference: The pig is not approaching the sacred contest with the requisite solemnity. It's a breach of protocol that the cow will not tolerate!

The pig's heart is filled not with a trembling awe, the proper expression of religious fervor, but instead with… happiness. And in his inappropriate mirth, he has insulted the very basis of the animals' supposed worldview! Who knew one belly laugh could upend an entire way of life? It's the guffaw heard 'round the world, and the cow—presented here as the culture's Old Guard—can only look on in shock and annoyance.

The pig, doesn't he realize what's at stake? Doesn't he know that by their deaths, the animals renew their very world? Here he is, laughing at his funeral, seemingly unmindful of the import, the honor that has been bestowed upon him. Like a holy clown, he chuckles, so glad is he to die. As the Sacred Wiener made from his flesh is proffered, he neither prays in gratitude, nor kneels in humble acceptance. Nor does he brace for combat. No, the fool laughs! A decent pig would hide his joy at death's impending caress, a joy—let's be frank—as natural as it is mysterious. He would act out his role with a little dignity. To enjoy death, but not to overenjoy it. This is what is required.

Miscellaneous Musical Sausages

Sausages, having passed through the tedium so familiar to all living things, have emerged on the brighter side.

Now the air's a little sweeter, each day a little easier. And check it out: the band has gotten back together! Yes, things are looking up!

Having been given new "life" as the aggregated remains of the formerly living, their "souls" are filled to the casing-breaking point. And so they play!

They drum, they toot, they honk. They jam.

(Thanks to Dr. Bea for the referral.)







Addendum: You know, they're like the Valleydale pigs, but for the younger generation!