Customer Reviews

Everything but the Squeal: Eating the Whole Hog in Northern Spain

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

EVERYTHING BUT THE SQUEAL: EATING THE WHOLE HOG IN NORTHERN SPAIN tells of John Barlow's culinary exploration of Northern Spain, where he searches out all the rural corners of the country in search of the best, rarest or most outrageous meals he can find. From an heirloom breed of hog that miraculously recovered from the brink of extinction to a thousand-year ant-throwing festival and making pig-bladder puddings for Carnival, his search for the ultimate pork and its unique Spanish connections makes for a powerful presentation indeed. Any library strong in international culinary explorations or travelogues needs this.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

this is a very amusing and well paced book, part cook book and part travel book and quite good at both.

i originally bought this as a gift but read it myself and then bought 5 more copies to give as presents.

to be highly recommended.

If you are really interested in the pig, this is not your book. The hog quest is an excuse to review the culture, the costumes, the traditions and the real Galicia and its inhabitants. The author is right in most of his perceptions, and nails almost all his descriptions of the Galician traits. If you are planning a trip there, or if you just want to know more about this corner of Spain and its people, this is a very good book.

I read the review in The Economist; being a glutton, I ordered the book right away.

Its anecdote is quite simple: This British lad tastes some pork delicacy on a visit to her girlfriend's town in Galicia. Becomes so entranced with the flavor, he decides to eat every single part of the pig, and write about it and the Galician locality where he ate it. Soon he finds one town that celebrates a barbaric lupercalian carnival, complete with mudfights spiced with live angry ants, where mobs fight to bite the boiled head of a pig. Another features Toñito, a pampered pig hailed as the town guest for the entire year. Toñito can enter your home, sleep in your bed or defecate in the Mayor's Office. But come the day of San Antonio (hence the nickname), Toñito is butchered in the town square to the delight of all. There's a description on how an entire family takes part in a hog slaughter, a visit to Fidel Castro's aunt, a gang of whipping clowns known as Peliqueiros, and an interview with Galicia's top politician, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, the key player who eased the transition between Franco's dictatorship and modern Spain's democracy. Not a dull moment.

A fun homage to Galicia and gallegos everywhere, and a nice appetizer before dinning on tapas, iberico ham and Albariño wine. ¡Salud!

Certainly, the focus of this book is on Barlow's travel in Spain to experience traditional pork recipes. (Or, was that just an excuse to travel around Galicia, meet people, and eat?) But, as he describes, eating is not just an act of fueling. It is a cultural activity. Barlow puts traditional eating in context by an insightful reflection on the way we eat today. Eating is just part of living as Barlow explains to us. This book is really about life. His use of great metaphores throughout the book makes for fun reading. I just loved this book. Very well written with a great sense of humor.

Barlow's premise first attracted me to buying this book: for searching the world for the perfect chorizo or the savoriest portion of pig is also a favorite, desperate pastime of mine, although Barlow keeps his pusuit close to home in his adopted home in northern spain. Aside from his year long pursuit of eating most pig parts, Barlow's narrative sneaks up on you and becomes an hilarious send up of local festivals in Galicia that he attends over the course of his year long pig dinner. This book goes beyond just funny food or travel writing. I traveled in northern spain as a student twenty years ago and he captures perfectly the mesmerizing outsiderness that an expat never shakes in foreign lands, but he combines it with a clear joy and love he has developed of the Galician people and their devotion to the tasty celtic pig. The foil during his quest, of his vegetarian wife, had me rolling on the floor with laughter. Buy this book even if you don't like sausage. A fine affair.