dissertation of roast pig summary

Charles Lamb: Essays

By charles lamb, charles lamb: essays summary and analysis of "a dissertation upon roast pig".

The narrator opens the essay by asserting that for a long period of early human history, people did not cook their meat but ate it raw. He claims that this was hinted at in the writings of Confucius, who mentioned an era known as the "cook's holiday," implying that the Chinese did not cook animals prior to his writings. According to the narrator, Confucius' essay goes on to describe how roasting was discovered by Bo-bo , the son of swineherd Ho-ti.

Bo-bo was one day playing with fire, as he was wont to do, and accidentally burned down his family's cottage along with the nine pigs that were trapped in the blaze. While trying to devise an explanation for what happened, Bo-bo was tempted by the smell of the burnt pigs and went to taste them. He found these burnt pigs delicious and could not stop eating them. Ho-ti was not just upset with Bo-bo for burning down the cottage, but for being enough of a fool to eat the pigs. Bo-bo eventually convinced his father to try the pig, and the father loved it too, but they agreed to keep the burnt pigs a secret. Yet, more and more frequently, a cottage fire could be seen at Ho-ti's property, at all hours of the day and night.

When their secret was found out, Ho-ti and Bo-bo were placed on trial in their town. During this trial, the jurors asked to try the burnt pig in question, and finding it delicious, they decided to let the father and son off. The judge was outraged, but a few days later there was one of those mysterious fires at his house too. Soon enough, these fires were occurring all around town, and the burnt pig became a cherished food.

Done with this history, the narrator begins singing the praises of roast pig, speaking of the crackling skin and succulent fat. He draws a humorous link between the swine—so often considered a gluttonous, base animal—and the type of man who enjoys eating that swine.

The narrator admits to enjoying all of the fine meats available, from strange foul to oysters, and sharing them with friends. He then recalls how, as a child, having nothing to offer a beggar on the street, he brought that beggar a plum cake his auntie had baked. He blames the hypocrisy of his giving spirit on the indiscretion. The essay concludes with an anecdote about how ancient people used to sacrifice pigs by whipping them, raising a moral conundrum about enjoying the meat of that animal. But the narrator seems indifferent to the conundrum, and suggests a tasty sauce made of shallots to eat the pig with.

Among the most light-hearted of Lamb's essays is this freewheeling comic dissertation on the pleasure of eating roasted pig. It features a copious use of the literary device of hyperbole, with Lamb going to all sorts of eccentric ends to extol the flavor of roasted pork. The logic of hyperbole is also evident in Lamb's use of a heightened tone to tell the absurd story of how roast pork was discovered after a house fire in China. Once again, Lamb construes literary devices and narrative forms in such a way that he manages to sneak some fiction into his essay work. The fable he constructs speaks to how odd it is that humans eat cooked animals at all.

We can see the tropes of Romanticism on full display in this essay, even though the subject of that Romantic meditation is a curious one. Lamb uses florid language and a subjective voice to give a vivid account of his experience with his subject. But whereas, for instance, fellow Romanticist Henry David Thoreau uses these techniques to describe Walden Pond and meditate on how his experience there reflects on man's participation in society, Lamb makes a culinary delight the subject of his Romantic inquiry, indulging his epicurean side and reflecting on the way good food makes friends out of those who may otherwise be suspicious of one another.

The culinary essay in and of itself is a storied subgenre. The most famous one may be Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," which satirically advocates cooking and eating England's children. A more recent popular example is David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster," which like Lamb's essay explores the delights of eating lobster but, unlike Lamb's, lingers on the inherent cruelty of cooking and eating the animal. In the case of Swift's, Wallace's, and Lamb's essays, there is an essential social component to their discussion of a specific food, and they seek to extract some wisdom about the human condition from practices of cooking and eating.

Charles Lamb: Essays Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Charles Lamb: Essays is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Which quality Charles Lamb a romantic writer?

As a Romantic, Lamb brought a key innovation to the somewhat new form, inserting his own personally to give the essays a conversational tone. His essays showcase his passions and anxieties, imbuing the non-fiction form with a personal and literary...

What is the major theme of "Poor Relation" by Charles Lamb?

The major theme is that of the "poor relation"... their irrelevance and unpleasant place in one's life.

Explain the theme of the essay ''A Dissertation upon Roast Pig''.

The essay describes the discovery of the exquisite flavour of roast pig in China in a time when all food was eaten raw. This is really a light hearted theme speaking to how odd it is that humans eat cooked animals at all.

Study Guide for Charles Lamb: Essays

Charles Lamb: Essays study guide contains a biography of Charles Lamb, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Charles Lamb: Essays
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Essays for Charles Lamb: Essays

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GetSetNotes

Charles Lamb Dissertation Upon a Roast Pig Summary

The essay tells the story of how the art of roasting meat was accidentally discovered. In ancient times, mankind ate their meat raw, but a Chinese manuscript suggests that a golden age known as the Cooks’ holiday marked the transition to cooking meat. The story revolves around a swineherd named Ho-ti and his son Bo-bo.

One day, Bo-bo accidentally sets his cottage on fire, along with a litter of new-farrowed pigs. As the fire burns, Bo-bo discovers the delicious taste of the burnt pig’s skin and flesh. He indulges in eating it, despite his father’s anger. Eventually, both father and son enjoy the burnt pig together. They are warned not to reveal their secret, as their neighbors would consider it abominable.

However, fires continue to break out in Ho-ti’s cottage, and the mystery is discovered. Father and son are summoned to trial, where the burnt pig is presented as evidence. Surprisingly, the jury members, after burning their fingers on the pig, declare the culprits not guilty without any consultation.

The judge buys up all the pigs in the area after a court decision, causing a shortage and increasing prices. Fires break out in the town, leading to the closure of insurance offices and a decline in architecture.

A sage discovers a way to cook pig without burning down houses, leading to the invention of the gridiron and later roasting by string or spit. The narrator argues that roast pig, particularly young and tender suckling pig, is the most delicious delicacy.

The narrator describes the unique qualities of roast pig, including the crisp crackling and the combination of fat and lean meat. The narrator praises the taste and versatility of pig, stating that it satisfies both the strong and weak appetites. The narrator expresses a willingness to share other food with friends but draws the line at giving away pig, considering it a personal blessing.

The narrator recalls an incident from his childhood where the gave away a plum-cake his aunt had given him to a beggar. He initially felt proud of his act of charity but later regretted it, realizing he had been ungrateful to his aunt. The narrator reflects on the pleasure his aunt would have felt if he had enjoyed the cake himself, and he feels guilty for his impulsive act of giving it away.

The essay then shifts to discussing the sacrifice of young pigs in the past and questions the wisdom of the practice. It ponders whether the method of whipping the pigs before their death could have enhanced the flavor of the meat, and whether it justifies the inhumane treatment.

The essay mentions a debate among young students about whether the intense pleasure a man might experience from eating a pig subjected to whipping justifies using that method to kill the animal. The outcome of the debate is forgotten. The essay concludes by suggesting a sauce for the pig, emphasizing the exclusion of onions and the use of mild sage. It also describes the pig as a delicate and fragile creature.

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• > Romanticism and Animal Rights
• > The slaughterhouse and the kitchen: Charles Lamb's “Dissertation upon Roast Pig”

Book contents

• Frontmatter
• Acknowledgments
• 1 In the beginning of animal rights
• 2 Grounds of argument
• 3 Keeping pets: William Cowper and his hares
• 4 Barbarian pleasures: against hunting
• 5 Savage amusements of the poor: John Clare's badger sonnets
• 6 Work animals, slaves, servants: Coleridge's young ass
• 7 The slaughterhouse and the kitchen: Charles Lamb's “Dissertation upon Roast Pig”
• 8 Caged birds and wild
• Bibliographical essay
• CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN ROMANTICISM

7 - The slaughterhouse and the kitchen: Charles Lamb's “Dissertation upon Roast Pig”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

To eat an animal can be seen as an ultimate exploitation. It was and is a cause of bad conscience in many persons. But few animal sympathizers were vegetarians, though we shall hear from them, and enormous economic interests were involved. Most pleaders on behalf of animals neither hoped nor wished to abolish the eating of meat, but sought to reform processes by which animals were reared, brought to market, fattened, and slaughtered. There was much they could deplore. Sheep, cattle, turkeys, and geese were driven from far to feed the city of London. Cattle came from Scotland, 500 miles away, and even from the Hebrides; sheep from Lincoln, Norfolk, Somerset, and Devon; turkey and geese walked as much as eighty miles, their feet in little cloth shoes. Perhaps a million animals were driven to London each year. The same thing happened on a smaller scale with provincial cities. For the animals, these were journeys of woe. They arrived emaciated. Once they were fattened outside London, they were driven to sale in Smithfield market and then to the slaughterhouses. Hogarth's “Stages of Cruelty” shows sheep being beaten through the city streets, an ordinary sight. John Lawrence describes all this. He also tells how in London calves on their way to slaughter were piled on wagons in living pyramids of confused bodies. Once arrived at Smithfield, they were thrown from the wagons to the cobblestones. A crowd commonly gathered to watch, for bones might be broken in the fall.

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• The slaughterhouse and the kitchen: Charles Lamb's “Dissertation upon Roast Pig”
• David Perkins , Harvard University, Massachusetts
• Book: Romanticism and Animal Rights
• Online publication: 22 September 2009
• Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511484421.008

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A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig

The English author Charles Lamb wrote many essays under the pseudonym Elia and first published his collected Essays of Elia in 1823. One essay describes the discovery of pork roast in China, with a somewhat politically incorrect text. Over the years, Lamb’s essay has been reprinted and illustrated by many celebrated artists, including Frederick Stuart Church and Will Bradley. This 1932 edition is illustrated by Wilfred Jones (born 1888), with pochoir color. Note the red-haired figure at the top left with the monogram G.B.S., representing George Bernard Shaw.

The piece begins:

Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks’ holiday.

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Satiric models for Charles Lamb's "a dissertation upon roast pig"

Research output : Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Though hitherto overlooked in social histories of cookery, Charles Lamb's essay approaches its subject through the new literary-culinary writing that appeared with European romanticism. Although Lamb's persona, Elia, never hesitates to express everywhere his idiosyncratic likes and dislikes, in "Roast Pig" he passes beyond eccentricity to become a morally transgressive figure. Lamb's implicit swipe at the vegetarians and his borrowings from modern and classical sources, such as Swift's "Modest Proposal" and the recipes or scenes in Apicius and Petronius, suggest that he undoubtedly expected his readers to recognize the false notes of excess, vanity, and even infant cannibalism revealed by Elia's appetite. The Latin satura-ae denotes a mélange, either literally a dish of various ingredients or, etymologically, the Roman invention of the satiric genre itself, that loose mixing of a variety of literary types. Fittingly, the pig-platters of Trimalchio and Elia thus turn back upon both the festival of the Saturnalia and, under the aegis of Saturn's misrule, upon the zeugmatic nature of satire itself. Elia's final reference to his schooldays at St. Omer's actually ties his gluttony to Guy Fawkes' scheme of exploding king, lords, and commons. By bursting pretensions and snobbery, Lamb's essay thus self-reflexively presents itself as a figurative equivalent to the "superhuman plot" of Fawkes.

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• General Arts and Humanities

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• Guy Fawkes Arts & Humanities 100%
• Pig Arts & Humanities 59%
• Cannibalism Arts & Humanities 47%
• Saturnalia Arts & Humanities 46%
• Snobbery Arts & Humanities 43%
• Misrule Arts & Humanities 43%
• Gluttony Arts & Humanities 43%
• Social History Arts & Humanities 41%

T1 - Satiric models for Charles Lamb's "a dissertation upon roast pig"

AU - Monsman, Gerald

N2 - Though hitherto overlooked in social histories of cookery, Charles Lamb's essay approaches its subject through the new literary-culinary writing that appeared with European romanticism. Although Lamb's persona, Elia, never hesitates to express everywhere his idiosyncratic likes and dislikes, in "Roast Pig" he passes beyond eccentricity to become a morally transgressive figure. Lamb's implicit swipe at the vegetarians and his borrowings from modern and classical sources, such as Swift's "Modest Proposal" and the recipes or scenes in Apicius and Petronius, suggest that he undoubtedly expected his readers to recognize the false notes of excess, vanity, and even infant cannibalism revealed by Elia's appetite. The Latin satura-ae denotes a mélange, either literally a dish of various ingredients or, etymologically, the Roman invention of the satiric genre itself, that loose mixing of a variety of literary types. Fittingly, the pig-platters of Trimalchio and Elia thus turn back upon both the festival of the Saturnalia and, under the aegis of Saturn's misrule, upon the zeugmatic nature of satire itself. Elia's final reference to his schooldays at St. Omer's actually ties his gluttony to Guy Fawkes' scheme of exploding king, lords, and commons. By bursting pretensions and snobbery, Lamb's essay thus self-reflexively presents itself as a figurative equivalent to the "superhuman plot" of Fawkes.

AB - Though hitherto overlooked in social histories of cookery, Charles Lamb's essay approaches its subject through the new literary-culinary writing that appeared with European romanticism. Although Lamb's persona, Elia, never hesitates to express everywhere his idiosyncratic likes and dislikes, in "Roast Pig" he passes beyond eccentricity to become a morally transgressive figure. Lamb's implicit swipe at the vegetarians and his borrowings from modern and classical sources, such as Swift's "Modest Proposal" and the recipes or scenes in Apicius and Petronius, suggest that he undoubtedly expected his readers to recognize the false notes of excess, vanity, and even infant cannibalism revealed by Elia's appetite. The Latin satura-ae denotes a mélange, either literally a dish of various ingredients or, etymologically, the Roman invention of the satiric genre itself, that loose mixing of a variety of literary types. Fittingly, the pig-platters of Trimalchio and Elia thus turn back upon both the festival of the Saturnalia and, under the aegis of Saturn's misrule, upon the zeugmatic nature of satire itself. Elia's final reference to his schooldays at St. Omer's actually ties his gluttony to Guy Fawkes' scheme of exploding king, lords, and commons. By bursting pretensions and snobbery, Lamb's essay thus self-reflexively presents itself as a figurative equivalent to the "superhuman plot" of Fawkes.

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