Download or read book The Singular Beast written by Claudine Fabre-Vassas and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fabre-Vassas details the folkloric beliefs and rituals that have been associated with the slaughter and consumption of pigs from the Middle Ages until today by both provincial and urban Europeans - such as the myth that Jews do not eat pork because their children had been transformed into pigs and the story that they crave the flesh of Christian children because they are deprived of pork.