LIVING HIGH,LOW AND MIDDLE ON THE HOG portrays a day that is large in the memory of men who, as boys, lived in the country and whose family grew a lot of the food that ended up on the dinner table. I remember going with my dad to Louis Dees' farm in Eudora, Mississippi; and when we got there, we found Mr. Dees getting ready to kill a hog. I was about twelve at the time and Mr. Dees let me use his .22 rifle to shoot the pig between the eyes. I am squeamish about things like that today, but we cosmopolitan folks have to remember our steaks, hams etc., do not come from farm animals who are done in by their suicidal inclinations.. Anyway, what I remember about that day is exactly what is portrayed in this print. The title comes from plantation and sharecropping days when you didn't always pay your help in cash, but in meat or produce. Unfairly and unfortunately, what cuts of meat you got depended on your race and station in life. This is one reason soul cooking often includes chitterlings and neck bones."Eating low on the hog" meant those marginal parts of the pig. Strangely, as I remember it, who got what, was not talked about, as everyone involved knew who got what, by tradition, custom or consistent shortchanging.. PLEASE EXCUSE POOR PICTURE QUALITY. A BETTER PICTURE IS IN THE WORKS.
