QuoteProject
To butcher a pork shoulder is to be forcibly reminded that this is the shoulder of a large mammal, made up of distinct groups of muscles with a purpose quite apart from feeding me. The work itself gives me a keener interest in the story of the hog: where it came from and how it found its way to my kitchen.
Michael Pollan
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote emphasizes the importance of understanding the source of our food and the process involved in its preparation.

Michael Pollan reflects on the deep connection between food and its origins, urging us to appreciate the journey of an animal from its life to our kitchen. By engaging in the work of butchering, we gain a more profound respect for the animal and the craft of cooking, recognizing that food is not just a product, but a result of complex processes and stories.

Themes

FoodButcheringAnimalCookingOriginRespect

In practice

Example use cases

During a cooking class focused on butchering, this quote could remind students of the importance of understanding the source of their ingredients.

More from Michael Pollan

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Michael PollanRead
You look how much sugar is in a typical supermarket loaf of bread: it's a lot of sugar. It's just become one of those sugar delivery systems in our food economy.
Michael PollanRead
There is nothing wrong with eating sweets, fried foods, pastries, even drinking soda every now and then, but food manufacturers have made eating these formerly expensive and hard-to-make treats so cheap and easy that we're eating them every day.
Michael PollanRead
Meat is a mighty contributor to climate change and other environmental problems. The amount of meat we're eating is one of the leading causes of climate change. It's as important as the kind of car you drive - whether you eat meat a lot or how much meat you eat.
Michael PollanRead
[Government] regulation is an imperfect substitute for the accountability, and trust, built into a market in which food producers meet the gaze of eaters and vice versa.
Michael PollanRead
He showed the words “chocolate cake” to a group of Americans and recorded their word associations. “Guilt” was the top response. If that strikes you as unexceptional, consider the response of French eaters to the same prompt: “celebration.
Michael PollanRead

Similar quotes

I had a long-lasting love affair with the flavors from Japan and the hustling New York street vendors. And, of course, a life-changing return to Ethiopia has made huge impacts on my life in food.
Marcus SamuelssonRead
I love the masochistic aspect of eating seething, real Sichuan food in Sichuan Province.
Anthony BourdainRead
The egg can be your best friend if you just give it the right break
Julia ChildRead
The centuries last passed have also given the taste important extension; the discovery of sugar, and its different preparations, of alcoholic liquors, of wine, ices, vanilla, tea and coffee, have given us flavors hitherto unknown.
Jean Anthelme Brillat-SavarinRead
As incisively pointed out in the documentary Food Inc.," an overwhelmingly large percentage of "new," healthy," and "organic" alternative food products are actually owned by the same parent companies that scared us into the organic aisle in the first place. "They got you comin' and goin'" has never been truer.
Anthony BourdainRead
...it was so rich and exotic I was seduced into taking one bite and then another as I tried to chase the flavors back to their source.
Ruth ReichlRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Michael Pollan | QuoteProject