The challenge for John Barlow in Everything But the Squeal is to consume every single part of the pig from tail to snout and everything in between; a veritable "porco-graphic tour" as John states. He faces every consumption with humor and more than a little snarky defensiveness, "when they're starving , pigs will occasionally eat eat other, but so do we when our airplanes crash in inhospitable places" (p 21). This is also a travelogue as John has promised to eat the pig geographically as well, "in situ" as he put it.
More than a travelogue about eating pork, Everything But the Squeal is a memoir about marriage and family. What more tolerant vegetarian wife would tote their newborn son around northern Spain while her husband goes on a quest to devour an entire pig? But wait, there is more. Everything but the Squeal is historical, describing the past cultures of the Galacian people. It's an abbreviate biography of Manuel Fraga (Minister of Tourism in 1962 and founder of the Popular Party in the 1980s). It's even a love letter to his son. The direct comments he makes to Nico are endearing. ( )

I love food writing, but I particularly like it when its humorous, and John Barlow is humorous. He is smart, snarky, and sarcastic, and I found myself laughing out loud.

“No one knows what to say when you tell them you're a writer. It's like shaking someone's hand and farting at the same time.” [pg 132]

Born in Britain but now living in (equally damp and green) Coruña, in the Spanish region called Galicia, which has more in common with Portugal and Ireland than the rest of sunny Spain, the author is married to a devout vegetarian. In spite of this, Barlow is an undaunted carnivore, and furthermore sets out to consume every bit of the pig that is eaten in his pork-loving adopted home – which is just about everything from snout to tail.

Over the course of a year, Barlow crisscrosses the region, hopping from one pork-themed festival to the next (I wish I could attend the Exaltación do Chourizo, the Exaltation of the Chorizo), taking his Volvo over death-defying mountain trails to reach isolated villages where old fashioned specialties are still made, interviewing and profiling anyone who could authoritatively discuss pork cookery, doing a heroic amount of eating, and ending with the crescendo of a matanza – a word I had previously associated with hand-netting tuna in Italy – the slaughter of six pigs in a matter of 90 minutes and their butchering over the course of an afternoon in a joint effort by a five-family village.

I read this book in hopes of an in-depth look at why the whole pig was or is consumed in rural places. This is touched on from time to time, but not given the thorough going-over I had expected. I did, however, learn a lot about Galicia and a host of other things. ( )

I struggled with this one. The authorial voice is a bit too arch, the tone too memoir-like for what is ostensibly a book about eating pigs. He almost lost me when he mentioned the brand of his notebook, and there were several other digressions that had nothing at all to do with pork. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, the quality of the writing didn't knock me out, and I was not engaged by any of it. ( )