John Barlow, self-confessed glutton, found himself in a tricky situation: living in one of the most meat-loving places on earth, married to a vegetarian.
The Barlows live in Galicia, the misty-green northwest corner of Spain, and home to a population that reveres and consumes every part of the pig. This gets Barlow thinking about the nature of our relationship with food—what’s delicious, what’s nasty, and what sort of obligation we have to the animals we eat. Over the course of one glorious, bilious year, Barlow vows to eat everything but the squeal.
In his travels, Barlow takes part in the thousand-year-old antthrowing festival of Laza. He makes pig-bladder puddings for carnival. He washes down lots of pork with lots of wine.
In the tradition of Calvin Trillin and Anthony Bourdain, Everything but the Squeal is an adventure in extreme eating, a hilariously quirky travel book, and a perceptive look at how what we eat makes us who we are.
Galicia cradles the village of Cervantes, ancestral origin of the family that produced Spain’s greatest novelist, but the creature arguably dearest to natives of Galicia is the pig. This ancient land, now Spain’s northwest quadrant, reveres the pig and makes diligent use of every part of the animal. The hind legs become exceptional cured hams, and lesser parts yield chorizo, liberally seasoned with pungent pimentón. Many of the pig’s best cuts end up in cocida, the local boiled dinner that features fresh pork and smoked sausages in a broth thick with vegetables. Fish figures in Galician cuisine as well, especially their beloved octopus. Married to a Galician, Barlow knows Galicians intimately and finds them warm but contrarian, hesitating ever to answer questions in the affirmative, a custom that drags out every conversation and encounter. Barlow introduces readers to some remarkable contemporary Galicians, including Fidel Castro’s cousin. --Mark Knoblauch
John Barlow's prize-winning fiction and non-fiction has been published by HarperCollins/William Morrow, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 4th Estate and various others in the UK, US, Australia, Russia, Italy, Germany, Spain and Poland.
His current project is the LS9 crime series. Set in the north of England, it follows the life of John Ray, the half-Spanish son of crime boss Antonio 'Tony' Ray. The series will eventually comprise nine novels.
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John was born in West Yorkshire, England, in 1967. He worked as a musician before studying English Literature at Cambridge University and language acquisition at Hull University. After teaching English for several years, he moved to Spain to write full-time, and has been there ever since. He is married to Susana, with whom he has two sons. They currently live in the Galician city of A Coruña.
Apart from writing fiction, he also works as a ghost writer and journalist. He has written for the Washington Post, Slate.com, Penthouse, Departures Magazine and The Big Issue, and he is currently a feature writer for the award-winning food magazine Spain Gourmetour.
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John's first published work, a novella, won the Paris Review's prestigious Discovery (Plimpton) Prize in 2002. He went on to publish a collection of novellas, EATING MAMMALS, the novel INTOXICATED, set in the late nineteenth century, and EVERYTHING BUT THE SQUEAL, a food-travelogue about Spain. He then published the off-beat noir novel WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO JERRY PICCO? under the pseudonym Joe Flores, before embarking on the LS9 series, which is scheduled to take him a decade to complete.
John has also worked with the conceptual artists goldin+enneby on their ACÉPHALE project, which has so far taken him to Nassau, Bergamo, Oslo and London, and into the company of Bahamian off-shore bankers, defamation layers, prize-winning artists, and Martina Navratilova. His writing for the project has been published variously in English, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Portuguese, and has featured at numerous art shows/galleries in the UK, the US, Canada, Brazil, Spain, Sweden, Norway and Italy.The novel HEADLESS, based on the project, is scehduled for release in 1212.
This review is from: Everything but the Squeal: Eating the Whole Hog in Northern Spain (Hardcover)
I bought this book because I wanted to travel to Galicia and wanted to get the local scoop on the life, food and culture there. I wanted very much to like this book and was looking forward to a fun read. However, 10+ pages in, I began to get bored as the pace is very slow. It felt like reading someone's rambling travel diary. The insights are not particularly revelatory; neither are the anecdotes. I flipped on and read bits of it here and there, but the tone continued in that rambling, disorganized style.
The book's central idea is that the author goes around Galicia trying different styles of pork dishes. It would have been better as a magazine article or a series of blog posts, but this is a very thick book with small font and no pictures (like a veritable novel!). If this is really nothing but a single-idea book, an editor could have cut half of it, increased the font size, thrown in some recipes and color photos.
The only people who could have pulled this kind of book off are Jeffrey Steingarten and Anthony Bourdain - they are funnier, edgier, throw out more interesting ideas bound together by much tighter prose. I regret spending money on this book. I read about 30 pages of it and gave up. I am still looking for that definitive, well-written book about modern Galicia.
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This review is from: Everything but the Squeal: Eating the Whole Hog in Northern Spain (Hardcover)
Friends and I were anticipating a visit to Galicia, and I came across this book. It is a most enjoyable read and provides a great overview of the culture and landscape of Galicia. All three of us read it before we traveled to Galicia. The book is humorous, informative, and interesting -- John Barlow's tales of a year touring Galicia. At the conclusion of the book, I felt much more informed about the places I was about to visit in ways I would never learn from a travel guidebook. I highly recommend it.
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This review is from: Everything but the Squeal: Eating the Whole Hog in Northern Spain (Hardcover)
A cultural and culinary travelogue of Galicia told by a very humorous writer. Starts off very well, but about two thirds through, the poor fellow seems to lose his steam for more pork and digresses a bit. Apart from that I found it a thoroughly enjoyable and fun read. The exploration of the cultural significance of pork in Galician culture is fascinating. Unfortunately the book's marred by the absence of a map, showing the authors journey. I suppose, like a lot of other people, I know where La Coruna is, but my Galician geography ends there and a map would have been very helpful.
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