Pork
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Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the pig. It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE.
Pork belly cut, showing layers of muscle and fat
A pig being slow-roasted on a rotisserie
Pig being prepared in France during the mid-19th century.
A traditional Austrian pork dish, served with potato croquettes, vegetables, mushrooms and gravy.
Pork is a food taboo among Jews, Muslims, and some Christian denominations. Swine were prohibited in ancient Syria and Phoenicia, and the pig and its flesh represented a taboo observed, Strabo noted, at Comana in Pontus. A lost poem of Hermesianax, reported centuries later by the traveller Pausanias, reported an etiological myth of Attis destroyed by a supernatural boar to account for the fact that "in consequence of these events the Galatians who inhabit Pessinous do not touch pork". In Abrahamic religions, eating pig flesh is clearly forbidden by Jewish (kashrut), Islamic (halal) and Adventist dietary laws.
The pig is considered an unclean animal as food in Judaism and Islam, and parts of Christianity.