Throughout history, the slaughter and consumption of the pig has been
the inspiration for role-playing and taboos, and at the center of
practices that defined the boundaries between Christians and Jews. A
provocative exploration of the pig in European culture and
anti-Semitism, The Singular Beast chronicles the cultural and
religious character of the pig -- and details the folkloric beliefs
still found among both provincial and urban Europeans and the rituals
that have been associated with it from the Middle Ages to today.