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Cultural Differences

Bye Bye piggies

Swine flu paranoia strikes Cairo, Egypt.

Pigs to be slaughtered.

and

Slaughtering has already started

Yes there are pigs in Egypt. Many of them. They are usually raised by the Christian garbage recyclers. They are used to turn garbage into protein.

The meat is available in some stores, butchers and restaurants. It isn’t the best pork I have ever had, but it is tolerable. Except the bacon. The bacon, from at least one store, tastes like fishmeal wrapped in saran wrap.

Anyway…

It is unclear to me whether or not the meat will be destroyed or just butchered and sold as it normally is.

I doubt with the paranoia about this that the meat will be sold. Especially since the government has closed at least one pig butchery in Alexandria.

It will be interesting to see if all the pigs are butchered and if this overwhelmingly Muslim state will allow pigs back into Egypt or if this will be used as an excuse to ban the animals.

Edit: May 2nd. Yesterday, we went to our favorite pizza place, Maison Thomas. It is own and operated by Coptic Christians and normally sells pork products, both as groceries (ie: a rack of pork chops, sliced ham etc) and on pizza. We were told “No pork products.”

I was unable to determine if this was a voluntary withdrawal of their pork offerings or if they were ordered to do so, orΒ  if they were just unable to obtain pork.

I find it hard to believe that pork is no longer available due to the slaughter.

5 replies on “Bye Bye piggies”

they gonna kill the pigs cuz it’s the Christian’s, and Islam exhort to hate both pigs and christians.

are you needing some make your own bacon procedures? presuming you can get pork belly, and have freezer space.

on the other hand- could check into whether Egypt accepts dry ice shipments…
(except biological specimens to Kadee’s work?) πŸ™‚

What a shame this happened but I wasn’t the least bit surprised. I lived in Cairo for almost 9 years and saw similar reactions. The poor Copts!

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