You're a Porkie

For most of my life, I have operated under a comforting and largely unexamined assumption that humans, as a species, occupied an entirely separate culinary category from the rest of the animal kingdom. Not morally, you understand. Morally we are clearly worse than most animals. But biologically, I assumed we would at least taste distinctive. Something refined. Possibly faintly of Earl Grey and quiet disappointment.

It turns out this is not the case.

Biochemically speaking, human meat is, rather inconveniently, very similar to pork. So similar, in fact, that various Pacific cultures settled on the term “long pig” as a practical descriptor. Not an insult. Not satire. Just straightforward taxonomy. Short pig had four legs and rooted about in mud. Long pig had two legs and invented tax returns. From a culinary standpoint, the distinction was apparently one of posture rather than composition.

There is something deeply unsettling about the calm practicality of the phrase. No moral panic. No existential angst. Just a quiet nod to biochemical reality. Long pig. It has the tone of something you might find on a butcher’s chalkboard between “lamb shoulder” and “sausages.”

Modern science, with its usual flair for removing the last remaining layers of human dignity, has confirmed the comparison. The muscle fibres are similar. The fat composition is similar. The chemistry is similar. Strip away the layers of identity - the job titles, the car keys, the vague belief that one is more important than one actually is - and what remains is structurally very close to something that lives in a farmyard and has never once worried about mortgage rates.

It does rather puncture the grand narrative of human exceptionalism.

We like to think of ourselves as elevated. Civilised. Separate. We build institutions. We debate philosophy. We invent cryptocurrency. And beneath it all sits the quiet biochemical truth that, at a molecular level, we are simply long pig with access to broadband.

It also casts everyday life in a slightly different light. The gym, for example, ceases to be a temple of self improvement and becomes more of an optimisation facility. We are refining the long pig. Improving the tone. Reducing excess fat. Preparing the long pig for professional presentation.

Likewise, the entire edifice of modern society begins to look faintly absurd. Boardrooms full of long pig discussing quarterly performance. Long pig standing in supermarkets comparing olive oils. Long pig arguing on the internet with absolute certainty about things they understood perfectly five minutes ago and will forget entirely by Tuesday.

The phrase “long pig” endures precisely because of its uncomfortable accuracy. It reminds us that beneath the elaborate theatre of civilisation, beneath the suits and ceremonies and carefully curated identities, we remain biological organisms built from the same basic materials as everything else that walks, crawls, or roots around in a field.

We are not separate. We are not exempt. We are simply long pig who, through an improbable sequence of evolutionary accidents, acquired the ability to name ourselves - and, in doing so, accidentally revealed more than we intended.