The Epic Pork Essay You Didn't Know You Needed

Today's link is to "Pork Life," a feature from Lucky Peach magazine, which you may know of as the super hip foodie mag created by David Chang, whom you may know of as the celebrity chef behind all those Momofuku restaurants, which you may know of as those fancy, trendy ramen places your insufferable East Coast peers can't stop Instagramming/mentioning in their TinyLetters.

More importantly: "Pork Life" is an autobiographical essay series about writer Todd Kliman's relationship with, well, pork. Sounds painfully contrived, but it's actually possibly the most profound piece of writing about pig-related things since like?? Charlotte's Web?? Also it won the 2016 James Beard Foundation MFK Distinguished Writing award — basically, the food writer's Pulitzer.

On top of just great magazine writing, there's something in this essay for basically every Deez Links subscriber: some rumination over one's Jewish identity, some painful family dynamics, the universal experience of a shitty journalism internship, some name dropping of Columbia, Missouri, (and Kansas City! and St. Louis!) and more. Enjoy!