The Pig Raised for Its Meat. Why Pork Became the Meat of Curing

Eben van Tonder · 9 October 2026

The pig gives no milk, no wool and no work. People kept it mainly for its meat and fat, and they killed it young and fat. A pig is also too large for one family, or even several families, to eat before the meat spoils, so its meat had to be preserved. Fresh pork was harder to keep than fresh beef, mutton or goat in the open air, and this may be the strongest reason why pork needed salt. This article traces the pig from the first villages to the curing basins of Hallstatt and explains why pork became the meat of ham, bacon and sausage. It follows on from The Origin of Salted Pork Traditions.

November in the Très Riches Heures. A swineherd knocks down acorns for his pigs in the autumn forest[1].

Why Pork?

In The Origin of Salted Pork Traditions I describe the curing basins of Hallstatt in the Austrian Alps, where pork was salted on a large scale in the 13th and 12th centuries BCE[2, 3]. That article describes how an organised system of curing pork developed in Europe. Here I return to an earlier question. Why was it pork? Salt preserves beef, mutton and goat as well, and in Roman Brittany and southern Spain salting vats were in fact used for beef, mutton and horse meat[4]. Yet the curing traditions of Europe and of China are based on the pig. People get food from a pig only when they kill it, the pig is too large to be eaten fresh by one household, and fresh pork spoils quickly in warm air.

How the Pig Came to Live with People

Archaeologists distinguish several pathways by which animals became domestic. Larson and Fuller write that the earliest domestic animals in each independent region followed the commensal pathway, which “does not begin with intentional action on the part of people”[5]. Animals came to feed on the waste of human settlements and slowly grew used to people. For the pig this is less certain. Pigs “may also have followed a commensal route because they were able to readily consume human waste”[5], and Price and Hongo describe a combined commensal and prey pathway that turned into loose husbandry[6]. Melinda Zeder writes of a period in which bolder and less wary boars came close to people before a domestic partnership formed[7]. Larson and Fuller estimate an era of commensalism and domestication of at least 3,000 years[5].

The pig was domesticated more than once. Pig domestication had begun by about 10,500 years ago in the Near East[8]. Price and Hongo date independent domestication to about 7500 cal BCE in northern Mesopotamia and about 6000 cal BCE in China[6]. Other researchers date domestic pigs at Jiahu in Henan to at least 6600 cal BCE[9], and Yuan and Flad report evidence from Cishan from about 8,000 years ago[10]. Genetics and archaeology both support an independent domestication in China[11]. In western Eurasia the early pigs belonged to the farming villages of the oak woodland zone, and in central China to the villages of millet farmers[5].

People therefore probably did not first keep pigs for meat. Pigs came to villages because villages produced waste, and Zeder calls pigs the “chief sanitation officers for human communities throughout the ages”[7]. Once people kept pigs, however, they raised them mainly for meat and fat.

What the Other Animals Gave While Alive

Andrew Sherratt argued in 1981 and 1983 that the use of cattle, sheep, goats and later horses changed fundamentally when people began to exploit their secondary products, namely milk, wool, traction, riding and the carrying of loads[12, 13]. People can take these products again and again. A cow gives milk every day, a sheep gives wool every year, and an ox pulls a plough for many years. Later research has tested and criticised parts of the theory, but the distinction between primary products, which need the death of the animal, and secondary products, which do not, has remained central[14].

The pig gives no secondary products. Albarella, Dobney, Ervynck and Rowley-Conwy write that “pigs do not provide any secondary products such as milk and wool, or have additional uses such as transport or power, as do some of the other common farmyard animals”[15]. They add that this has led to the view that pigs “merely existed as meat providers”[15]. A sow gives piglets, and pigs eat waste while they live[7, 16], but people get food from a pig only when they kill it.

AnimalProducts while aliveProducts at slaughter
CattleMilk, traction[13, 14]Meat, fat, hide
SheepMilk, wool[13, 14]Meat, fat, skin
GoatMilk, hair[13]Meat, skin
PigPiglets, disposal of waste[7, 16]Meat, fat, skin, blood, intestines[15]

What the main farm animals give while they live and when they are killed.

A farmer who kills a cow, a sheep or a goat loses its milk, wool or work as well as gaining its meat. A farmer who kills a pig loses nothing of this kind, because people kept the pig for its meat and fat. At the Bronze Age mines of the Eastern Alps, people kept cattle, sheep and goats mainly for their other products, while the pig supplied most of the meat[17].

An Animal Raised for Its Carcass

Pigs are well suited to this use. The FAO describes pigs as “prolific” and as “good feed to meat converters compared to other livestock such as cattle”[16]. A sow commonly gives about ten piglets per litter, or twenty a year, and gestation lasts about four months[16]. The pig commonly grows rapidly to slaughter age, and it eats both plant and animal food[16]. Their feed was equally important. They fed on acorns in the forest, on household scraps and on crop residues[15, 16, 18]. Cattle and sheep turn grass into milk, wool, traction and in the end meat. Pigs turn waste, surplus and the autumn crop of the forest directly into meat and fat. Zeder notes the pig’s “high birth rates and impressive per capita yield of high-fat-content meat”[7].

Frank Frost calculates that a pig of eight months can yield up to fifty kilograms of meat, fat and other products, and he notes that hams became “a form of storable wealth”[19]. The FAO describes pig keeping today in similar terms. Pigs “can be considered as a store of wealth and a safety net in times of crisis”, pig production often “functions as a banking system”, and pigs can be fed on kitchen leftovers and crop residues[16]. In the cities of Sumer pigs were fed household scraps and roamed the streets[15]. In northern Mesopotamia between 3000 and 2000 BCE, pigs offered struggling households an alternative means of subsistence and some degree of autonomy[20].

At Hallstatt this use of the pig was organised on a large scale. The pigs there were killed at one and a half to two years old, with almost no younger or older animals, and the jaws include 102 males and only nine females[3]. Pucher considers the males to have been castrated, presumably for better tasting meat[3]. Castrated males have more backfat and less lean meat than entire boars[21]. Because the main food from these pigs came at slaughter, people could choose the sex, the age and probably the castration that gave the carcass the curers wanted.

The ages of the pigs also indicate a division of work. Piglets and old breeding animals are almost absent, so the pigs were not bred in the high valley. Selected animals were raised elsewhere and arrived as prepared carcasses[3]. Somewhere outside Hallstatt were the breeding herds and the farms that fattened the pigs. Someone chose animals of the right sex and age, the carcasses were cut up in a standard way, and the meat was carried to the salt and processed in purpose built basins[2, 3]. This was a specialised supply chain for meat.

From Hallstatt to Gaul and Rome

Similar specialised pork production appears later in Gaul. At Levroux Les Arènes in central Gaul, isotope and size studies of pig bones point to a specific selection for size and weight in a specialised production of pork, within new structures of production and distribution that were established probably before the 2nd century BCE[22, 23]. Roman writers then describe Gaul and northern Italy as producers of salted pork. Varro wrote in the 1st century BCE that “the Gauls usually make the best and largest flitches”, and that Comacine and Cavarine hams and shoulders were still imported every year from Gaul to Rome[24]. In the Middle Ages pannage in the forest and slaughter in winter continued the same farming year[25, 26]. The sequence therefore runs from specialised processing at Hallstatt, through specialised pork production in Iron Age Gaul and the commerce in pork of Gaul, northern Italy and Rome, to the pannage and winter slaughter of medieval Europe and the ham and bacon industries that followed.

Mast, Fat and the Farming Year

In temperate Europe pigs were fattened in the forest. Polybius wrote in the 2nd century BCE that the acorns of the Po plain fed almost all the swine slaughtered in Italy, both for households and for the army[18]. In 1086 the Domesday survey measured English woodland by the number of pigs it could feed, with entries such as woodland for 100 pigs[25, 27]. Medieval calendars show acorns knocked down for the pigs in November and the pig killed in December[1, 26]. The pigs grew fat on acorns in autumn, and they were killed and salted in the cold of winter.

These steps formed one agricultural system. An isotopic study of pig bones from the Late Neolithic feasts at Newgrange in Ireland found that most pigs were slaughtered shortly after a period of rapid weight gain on mast in the forest, and that the feasts probably took place around the winter solstice[28]. Through the year the pigs fed on forest and waste. In autumn the mast added the last fat, and the pig reached its greatest weight. Keeping it through the winter would then have cost the farmer fodder, so it was killed. The cold reduced spoilage, and salt kept the meat for the following months. The last three steps are my reading of the farming year and are not stated in the Newgrange study.

Why Pork Suits Salt

Fat pork was less suited than lean meat to simple drying alone. Salting, often followed by drying or smoking, preserved both its lean and its fat better, for three reasons. The first is fat. Meat technologists at the FAO state that “only lean meat is suitable for drying”, because in fat “rancidity quickly develops”, and their list of suitable meats names beef, camel, sheep, goat and venison but not pork[29]. The second is size. Whole legs and sides are thick, so salt and water must travel far through them, and they need a long period of cool salting. The third is that the pig supplies its own materials for processing. Its fat can be rendered, its blood can be cooked, and its intestines serve as casings for minced meat and fat. Salt dissolves the muscle protein myosin in minced meat, and the myosin binds the sausage when it is heated[30]. From one pig, therefore, people could make ham, bacon, sausage and lard at the same time.

A pig divides into parts that suit different methods. The hind leg becomes ham, and the side and belly become bacon or salted pork. The shoulder can be salted or processed, lean trimmings go into sausage, and fat becomes lard and sausage fat. Blood becomes blood sausage, the intestines become casings, and the head, jowls and feet become separate foods. At Hallstatt the carcasses were taken apart in a fixed way before processing. The pig was opened from the back, and the spine and ribs were removed with the entrails, a method that the Natural History Museum in Vienna compares with the production of Gailtaler Speck in Carinthia today[31].

The pig is therefore best described as an animal for meat and fat. Farmers castrated male pigs, which then have more backfat[21], and they fattened pigs in autumn. Very fat pigs were praised. Cato wrote that an Insubrian sow grew so fat in spring that she could not stand, and Varro reported a Lusitanian sow with fat “one foot three fingers thick from skin to bone”[24]. From the fat people made lard, and in sausage they combined lean meat and fat again.

When a pig is killed, all its meat must be dealt with at once, and most of it spoils quickly. A herder who lives on milk can keep his wealth alive, while a pig keeper must kill the animal and then preserve the meat[19, 32]. People used salt, cold and time to keep this meat, and The Origin of Salted Pork Traditions describes how this was done on a large scale at Hallstatt[2].

Why Fresh Pork Was Harder to Keep

A pig is much larger than a chicken. A household can eat a chicken in one meal, or boil it down and eat it over two or three days. One family cannot eat a pig in a few days, and neither can several families together. A pig of eight months can yield up to fifty kilograms of meat, fat and other products[19]. Its meat therefore had to keep. In one study at 30 °C, pork kept for 8 to 12 hours and chicken for only 3 to 6 hours[33]. Chicken spoils faster, but a household finishes it before it spoils. Without refrigeration the meat of a large animal must be sold quickly or preserved, and the FAO advises that in warm conditions meat should be put on sale within a day of slaughter[34]. An ox is also too large for one household. Beef, however, was commonly sold fresh from the hanging carcass, while pork was salted. The following sections give the reasons I can find for this difference.

Carcasses Hanging in African Markets

In Nigeria, Zambia and Tanzania I have seen beef and goat carcasses hanging from trees and frames at markets, with meat cut from them for sale through the day. I have never seen pork sold in this way. Leo Frobenius described the market at Bida in Nigeria in 1913, where beasts were killed in the morning and the meat was left in the sun all day[35]. Pork in East Africa is handled differently. In Dar es Salaam there were no registered slaughterhouses for pigs in 2016, and most pigs came from up country[36]. In Kampala pork is sold mostly in pork joints, raw, fried or roasted[37]. In southwestern Nigeria pigs are slaughtered on the floor with little water[38], and in southeastern Nigeria singed pig carcasses were dragged on the ground to the washing point[39].

I have also observed that the skinned quarters of cattle, sheep and goats, hanging in the open, keep better than one would expect. My explanation is that bacteria from the skin and the surface flora reach the meat during skinning and hold pathogens back. Laboratory work supports parts of this. Lactic acid bacteria that occur naturally on meat can control Escherichia coli O157:H7[40], and the background flora of a food can slow the growth of pathogens when the two compete[41]. No study has yet tested this on traditionally slaughtered meat in African markets, and studies of open markets in Nigeria, Zambia and Tanzania report high bacterial counts on meat sold there[39, 42]. Field studies of the microbiology of such meat are needed to test the observation.

The Dry Surface of a Skinned Carcass

A skinned carcass that hangs in moving air forms a dry surface. The FAO notes that after correct skinning “the carcass surface will quickly dry out, inhibiting bacterial growth”[34], and that dry meat surfaces inhibit the growth of bacteria and moulds[29]. W.J. Scott and J.R. Vickery showed in Australia in the 1930s that low temperature and low humidity control bacteria on beef during chilling[43]. In commercial pig plants, drying of the carcass surface reduced the share of Gram negative spoilage bacteria[44]. The quarters of cattle, sheep and goats are covered by the membranes of connective tissue and by fat, and on these surfaces the white dry layer forms that I see on hanging carcasses in African markets. Bacteria stay on the surface of meat during their main growth phase and penetrate it only later, when spoilage has already begun[45].

Pigs are dressed in another way. The FAO describes the scalding and singeing of pig carcasses, and singeing “shrinks and sets the skin”[34]. The skin stays on the carcass, so no dry surface of meat forms on the outside of the sides. Scalding and singeing reduce bacteria, but dehairing machines are always contaminated, and dehairing raised the aerobic count by almost two logarithmic units in a review of many studies[46]. I regard the lack of a dry outer surface on a pig carcass with its skin on as one reason why pork could not hang for a day in the open as beef and goat do. No study has tested this directly.

Stress and the Warm Carcass

Pigs are more prone to acute stress before slaughter than cattle, and their muscles break down glycogen faster after death[47]. When the pH falls while the carcass is still warm, the muscle proteins are damaged and the meat becomes pale, soft and exudative, known as PSE[48, 49]. The frequency of PSE is much higher when pigs are excited or exposed to extreme temperatures just before slaughter[50], and many pig breeds carry a gene that makes them prone to it[48]. In a hot climate without chilling the carcass stays warm for hours, and these are the conditions under which PSE develops. PSE meat loses more liquid, and this exudate is an ideal food for bacteria[51]. Soft and watery pork was also unsuitable for curing, as I describe in an earlier article on pork quality in antiquity[52].

Cattle are not free of this problem. Cattle that are stressed over a long time, for example by long treks to market, produce meat with a high pH, known as dark, firm and dry or DFD meat, and this meat spoils faster[53, 54]. An ox slaughtered calmly close to where it grazed is less likely to give DFD meat. A pig panics easily, and its meat is more likely to be soft and wet. A cow tied by the legs is generally calmer than a pig handled in the same way, but I know of no study that compares the two directly under traditional slaughter.

Unsaturated Fat

Pork fat is also less stable than the fat of cattle and sheep. Pigs have high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids, while in ruminants microbes in the rumen convert much of the unsaturated fat in the feed into saturated fat[55, 56]. The Codex standard gives 4 to 12 per cent linoleic acid for lard and 1 to 6 per cent for the tallow of cattle and sheep[57]. Unsaturated fats oxidise and turn rancid more quickly[55]. Pork fat is valuable for curing and sausage, but in warm air it turns rancid sooner than the fat of cattle and sheep.

Pork in the Cold Store

In meat processing in Lagos I have repeatedly received pork, beef, mutton and goat from traditionally operated slaughter facilities and placed the meat under refrigeration several hours after slaughter. The pork generally became unacceptable within about seven days, while beef, mutton and goat often remained acceptable for longer. This meat was already in the cold store, so the dry surface of a carcass hanging in the open air cannot explain the difference.

Sun and colleagues compared loins of beef and pork stored under the same chilled conditions for 28 days. Both meats started with 4.3 log CFU per gram, and the total bacterial counts of the two did not differ at any point of storage. Both exceeded 7 log CFU per gram by day 28. Judged by total volatile basic nitrogen, the pork was spoiled after 21 days, seven days earlier than the beef. The authors attributed the difference mainly to the higher protease activity in pork. Proteases are enzymes that break down protein. Volatile compounds associated with spoilage also indicated a shorter shelf life for pork[58]. In this study, therefore, the number of bacteria did not decide when the meat spoiled, and pork spoiled first although both meats carried the same bacterial load.

Blixt and Borch compared vacuum packed pork and beef in 2002. They found that the rate of spoilage was associated with the biochemical condition of the meat, in particular pH, lactate and glucose 6 phosphate. Their model explained 68 per cent of the variation in spoilage rate, and species had no independent effect once these variables were included[59]. The two studies used different products, packaging and measures of spoilage, so their results do not conflict. Both point to the chemistry of the muscle after slaughter as a cause of earlier spoilage, in addition to the number of bacteria.

The muscle enzymes of the species also differ. Koohmaraie and colleagues compared the longissimus muscle of beef, lamb and pork in 1991. The inhibitor of the calcium dependent proteases, the calpains, was most active in beef, less active in lamb and least active in pork. One day after slaughter the muscle protein desmin had been broken down most in pork, less in lamb and least in beef[60]. Pork muscle therefore breaks down its own proteins faster than the muscle of lamb and beef. That study concerned tenderness and not spoilage. I consider it likely, however, that the faster breakdown of protein in pork supplies peptides and amino acids to spoilage bacteria earlier. This would agree with the higher protease activity that Sun and colleagues measured in pork and with the shorter keeping quality of pork that I see in the cold store. No study I found has tested this link directly.

My observation in Lagos was made repeatedly, on deliveries of all four species from the same traditional slaughter facilities. It has not yet been tested under controlled conditions. The four species arrived at the same time, but I did not record how long each carcass had been held, or at what temperature, before it reached the cold store. The laboratory studies support an earlier deterioration of pork compared with beef, and the muscle enzymes of lamb lie between those of pork and beef. I found no comparable study for goat. A practical test is possible in any plant that receives the four species. For each carcass one would record the time from slaughter to chilling, the core temperature on arrival, the pH on arrival and after 24 hours, the total viable count and the total volatile basic nitrogen at intervals during storage, and the day on which a trained panel rejects the meat. Meat that looks and smells acceptable after seven days can still carry pathogens, because sensory acceptability is not the same as safety.

The Evidence So Far

I found no study that compares the spoilage of fresh pork, beef, mutton and goat side by side under the same tropical slaughter and chilling conditions. One extension study at 10 °C found that pathogens took longer to start growing on minced pork than on minced beef[61]. In chilled storage, however, pork loin spoiled seven days before beef loin with the same bacterial count[58], Blixt and Borch linked the rate of spoilage to pH and other biochemical variables[59], and pork muscle breaks down its own proteins faster than the muscle of lamb and beef[60]. Several causes probably act together. Pigs are more prone to PSE in a warm carcass, the skin stays on so that no dry protective meat surface forms, the fat oxidises faster, and the muscle proteins of pork break down faster after slaughter. Beef, goat and mutton can be skinned and can form a dry surface, and the muscle of cattle and sheep breaks down its proteins more slowly. No single mechanism explains the whole difference, but together they made fresh pork harder to sell from a hanging carcass or to hold in the cold store, and salt was more necessary for pork than for the meat of ruminants.

Salt lowers the water activity of meat, which is the water available to microbes[29, 62]. Most bacteria need a water activity of at least 0.91, while fresh meat has 0.98 to 0.99[29]. Salt also draws water out of microbial cells, which shrink in a process called plasmolysis, and high salt concentrations interfere with their enzymes[62]. Butchers used salt for thousands of years before the mechanism was understood[63]. A pig carcass that could not hang safely for a day could be salted, and salted pork kept for months.

Where the Pig Was Not Welcome

Where the pig was not kept or not eaten, the curing of pork did not develop. Herodotus wrote in the 5th century BCE that “swine are held by the Egyptians to be unclean beasts”, and that swineherds, “though native born Egyptians, are alone of all men forbidden to enter any Egyptian temple”[64]. Leviticus 11:7 says of the swine that “he is unclean to you”, and Deuteronomy 14:8 adds, “ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcase”[65]. The Qur’an 2:173 names swine among the foods that are forbidden[66]. The Khoikhoi of the Cape lived mainly on the milk of their cattle, and they killed an ox for a feast and ate it without salt[32, 67]. These peoples knew salt, but they did not keep or eat pigs.

Zeder also asks why pigs, despite their high birth rates and fat meat, “never assumed a major role in any ancient Near Eastern subsistence economies”[7]. People kept pigs in large numbers only where they wanted stored fat meat and had forest, waste or grain to feed them.

China

In China, at the other end of Eurasia, people domesticated the pig independently and raised it for the same reasons. Chinese ways of life varied greatly by region and period, so pork did not dominate everywhere at once, but China, like Europe, eventually developed a major tradition of preserving pork. Pigs were the most important domestic animals at Xitou in the Wei River valley in the Yangshao period (about 5000 to 3000 BCE) and the Longshan period (about 3000 to 1900 BCE), and at nearby Yangguanzhai they make up 77.3 per cent of the identified bones[68]. Several decades ago pork made up 59 per cent of the meat produced in China, and in recent years 63.9 per cent[69]. A study of early modern China describes how pork “became the country’s most widely consumed meat”[70]. 金华火腿 (Jīnhuá huǒtuǐ, Jinhua ham) is attributed to the Tang dynasty (618 to 907 CE) on the basis of a secondary source, while other traditions connect it with the Southern Song dynasty (1127 to 1279 CE), whose first emperor is said to have given it the name huotui. Its salting is carried out only in winter[71].

The Chinese character 家 (jiā, home or family) shows a roof, 宀 (mián, roof), over a pig, 豕 (shǐ, pig). Its meaning is debated. The dictionary 說文解字 (Shuōwén jiězì, Explaining Graphs and Analysing Characters, about 100 CE) treats the pig as a sign for sound, an abbreviated 豭 (jiā, boar). The scholar 段玉裁 (Duàn Yùcái, 1735 to 1815) called the character a great puzzle and suggested that it first meant a shelter for pigs and was later used for the dwellings of people[72]. Whether the pig was central to the Chinese household cannot be decided from this character. Chinese scholars have, however, connected pigs and homes in this character for at least two thousand years.

The Pig, the Salt and the Curing Industry

Because pigs were raised mainly for the carcass and not for milk, wool or traction, pork became the meat of curing wherever pigs were kept, forests or waste fed them and winters were cold. For this reason the European and Chinese traditions both use the pig, and ham, bacon and sausage come from one animal. Curing became an organised industry much later and in particular places. People kept pigs for thousands of years before the Hallstatt basins were built, and many societies that kept pigs left no evidence of curing on that scale. An industry needed salt, a cold winter and the organisation described in The Origin of Salted Pork Traditions as well[2].

The causes can be set out in order. Pigs have large litters and grow quickly. They eat forest mast, waste and crop residues. Unlike cattle and sheep, they were not kept alive for milk, wool or traction. Autumn mast brought them to their best condition, and winter brought both a shortage of feed and a temperature that slowed spoilage. A pig was too large for a family to eat before the meat spoiled. Fresh pork was also harder to keep than the meat of ruminants, because pigs are prone to PSE in a warm carcass, they keep their skin so that no dry surface forms, their fat oxidises faster, its muscle proteins break down faster after slaughter, and in cold storage pork spoiled earlier than beef with the same bacterial count. Slaughter then gave a large amount of meat and fat at once, and the carcass divided into parts that suited different methods of preservation. Salt turned this seasonal surplus into food that lasted, and trade turned the preserved pork into wealth. Hallstatt is the earliest place known at present where several of these causes operated together on a large scale[2].

A pig gives no food until it is killed, and then all of it at once. A pig turns a year of feed into meat and fat in its own body, and salt keeps that meat for the months that follow. Curing allowed people to eat the meat of one day of slaughter for a whole year and to trade it over long distances.

References

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