Copied from my grandmother’s (Florence Kadan Bailey-I was named after her) album; circa 1920. I remember this being very popular, as she often gave this as a dramatic reading on Saturday nights at church.

Do you think, my friends, that in God’s great plan

When He was prescribing the best food for man

That He made a mistake in leaving the swine out

For she was not good from her tail to her snout?

 

Oh, the carcass of an old dead horse or a cow

Doesn’t get too rotten for the dirty old sow;

Though we holler a lot about boils and gout,

And eat Miss Piggy from her tail to her snout.

 

We wouldn’t eat the buzzard, we’d think it a crime

But how much more filthy is he than the swine

That we make into pie, or cook her with kraut

And eat her or die, from her tail to her snout!

 

We cook her with cabbage or boil her with greens

With her mangy old hide we season our beans;

With her scabs and her boils within and without

Sweet Piggy we eat from her tail to her snout.

 

On filth they feast, while in stink-holes they lay

And still for their carcass our money we pay;

The preacher, professor or the judge on his bench

Eat the carrion-eater, her filth and her stench.

 

In filth you can see her clean up to her eyes

Her slimy old carcass all covered with flies;

Some have died with cholera (due to the butcher, no doubt).

We still think her good from her tail to her snout.

 

God made her a scavenger, he says she’s unclean.*

What other creature is as filthy and mean?

If we eat her flesh, or touch her dead carcass

With sickness and disease it surely will mark us.

 

Now we sing and we talk of God’s great love so divine,

Like vultures, then we feast on the dirty old swine.

We might shun many ills and disease, no doubt

By not eating her, – from her tail to her snout!

 

Yes, we worship the Lord and pray and shout

But that old hog flavor we can’t do without;

From him, bacon and sausage, we go the whole route

And eat the whole hog from his tail to his snout.

 

You may think of fresh pork as a very rare treat

But our bodies are made of just what we eat

And the food she has eaten, the filth of the land

Goes into our bodies as food, second hand.

 

No wonder we are weak and our hearts beat so slow.

Sanitariums full, hospitals overflow.

For we eat such unclean, abominable things

That are creeping, crawling or flying with wings.

 

And now, my friends, you may no doubt recall

Indulgence of appetite caused Adam’s fall.

Our Saviour was tempted on this point, no doubt

Then why do we eat from her tail to her snout?

 

*Leviticus 11:7