So I decided to share a little bit of trivia with you today. You may have noticed my sporadic sprinkles of pork love woven through the posts every once in the while. This is no mistake. As all of my friends know that I am slightly obsessed with pork. And meat in general [pork being the king of all meat, clearly]. And I make no apologies for it. Btw, this post is probably not suitable for vegetarians. Hazard alert. Proceed at your own risk.

Today is my family’s Slava, which is a Serbian Orthodox tradition of the annual ritual celebration of our family patron saint day [for us it’s St John The Baptist, in case you are interested]. Slava is a tradition which is observed only by the Serbs, and it is regarded as one of our most significant and special feast days. This afternoon, our family will come together to conduct a simple ceremony which I absolutely love – we will all hold and turn the special home-baked bread [slavski kolac] while my dad and his brother [the eldest males in our family] will sing a prayer for our family and give thanks for our fortune. Mum will go around the house with special insense [tamjan], and bless all the corners including everyone who is present at our ceremony. And so on…

 

 

So why do I tell you all this? Because what happens after the ceremony is this – we eat a substantial amount of pork. Oh yeah. And I’m talking pork in epic proportions. And whilst I hope this doesn’t gross you out, I am totally going to get into that little spit-roasted suckling pig up to my elbows. Bring it! Vegetarians, are you still reading this?

Anyway, whilst you all recover from that visual, I thought that today would be highly appropriate for a little Design Free Thursday tribute post, dedicated entirely to my love of meat. Fitting, no? Above and below is a selection of clever and hilarious meat inspired creations.

Extreme love.

x dana

 

 

Image credits top to bottom: 1. Dominic Episcipo’s United Steaks of America via oh joy! | 2. CD salami by Mother Eleganza via inspire me now | 3. Pork chair anyone? Book cover by Armando Testa via design eye Q | 4. ‘Love the Pig’ by shaderlab via Flickr | 5. United Steaks by Dominic Episcipo | 6 – 8. Crochet meat cuts (OMG, I’m in LOVE with the knitted pig head – hilarious!) by Clëmence Joly via The Whistling Duck.

27 Responses

  3. Kate

    happy Slava!
    I’m with you in the knee deep suckler for the h’win!
    Delicious.
    (sorry [email protected])

    PS Check out The Undertones “All Wrapped Up” cover. Not only a great album, but bacon too!

    Reply
  5. yellowtrace

    Thank you Ben & Kate. May the pork be with you.

    Sorry Jen – I know, I’m a sick puppy!

    Lauren! Dude! I only like eating meat, not wearing it. It’s a waste! Although I’d probably enjoy wearing a bacon scarf… ;)

    Reply
  10. Linda from OEKE

    Oh dear, I could not come up with anything at all witty to say ..
    So. Just wanted to pop in and say ‘Pig Out Sister’. Enjoy your family day (-:

    Reply
  11. Ingrid

    I wonder what the reaction would be if these were images of whale, dog or human meat in funny shapes?

    I hate to bring the laughter down but this glorification of dead {insert animal here} for entertainment or traditions – is no different to wearing fur, hanging a stuffed head on your wall or doing a lady gaga.

    Sorry Dana, I’ve so looked forward to reading your stories on a daily basis, but this ‘mediocrity’ has made me hit ‘unsubscribe’

    Reply
  12. yellowtrace

    Thank you Linda, we had such a great family day. And btw, you are witty most other times and you deserve a day off ;)

    Ingrid, some pretty harsh words there… Design Free Thursday is about poking fun at lots of different things – cutting lose, being left of centre and not taking life too seriously. I actually received e-mails from a couple of vegetarians today who thought this post was absolutely hilarious. So, you know – life is all about an attitude, and what you choose to take offense at. So farewell and thank you for your readership so far.

    Reply
  13. linda from OEKE

    Just wanted to say your response to Ingrid was perfectly written. I hope you didn’t lose too much sleep over it. Perhaps ‘I’ should be offended by the images of vegetable-people a few weeks back.

    I know of another blog .. Joe’s blog .. who was also condemned for putting a picture of meat up. I’m not sure what the world is turning into if we are railroaded by people who make a stand, a verbally nasty stand at that, on anything ‘meat’ related. Salami is not a dirty word!!

    You post about stylish things, topical things, weird things and funny things. Couldn’t imagine NOT visiting. Nor, I am sure, are the countless others. Hope the day was fun yesterday. Keep up the gr(m)eat work (-:

    Reply
  14. Ingrid

    It’s a sad step back to the dark ages when you’re considered to have a bad attitude because you’re compassionate & respectful towards other living creatures, or that you take life too seriously when you can’t ‘poke fun’ at animal exploitation.

    Any vegetarian who thought this was hilarious is just a hypocrite without conviction to stand by what they believe in.

    I wasn’t aware that behaving like bogan cave-men who rave about MOOOOT had become ‘stylish’… perhaps we should call Vogue?

    In situations like these, I like to ask myself ‘what would Stella McCartney say’?

    Reply
  15. Mandi

    Ingrid, for people who A) eat dead animals and B) choose to make jokes about the defenseless animals they eat are incapable of really hearing what you’re saying. They have to disconnect from their compassion and heart to be able to be involved in such a hideous cruelty on a daily basis. Your words, however beautiful and heartfelt, are unfortunately lost here.

    Best to stick with people who share your passion for protecting the innocent. It is here that you will find and create the change we wanna see in the world. Peace xx

    Reply
  16. Oliver Barlow

    Wow what an amazing post. Thank you!! I love to see something that challenges me and my way of thinking.
    For some reason I found the “Love & Death” really confronting – really spun me out.

    The crocheted cuts of meat were amazing, totally cracked me up!

    I have no idea what Stella would say but in the words of Samuel Butler “It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy – but he who has shown the better temper”. You have shown great temper.

    Reply
  17. Shellie

    Well said Ingrid and Mandi. I doubt any vegetarians, or humanitarians for that matter would find that ”Love and Death” message amusing. At All.

    Reply
  18. fin

    Just telling you its a waste of time commenting is a waste of time so Im out of here sleepers.

    Reply
  19. deb

    What does love have to do with a minced up animal. I dont get it?
    Really bad taste.

    Reply
  20. Terri

    I agree with Ingrid, Mandi, and Shelli. As someone who has been in animal rescue for many years and has worked to protect the animals abused and killed so some idiot can clog their arteries and run up huge medical bills the public including vegans like me will wind up having to pay when they bankrupt themselves, I do not find it amusing at all. It is sick. Hey, maybe you could have a really funny one showing people crocheting the hair of African-American slaves from the old south or to really get hysterically funny, perhaps some lovely designs using the bones of the people Adolph Hitler and the Nazis gassed to death. To me, that would be as funny as suffering animals. Where is your compassion?

    Reply
  22. sal

    Vegetarians seem to sound pretty angry… and hungry. Maybe you are lacking some protein in your diet?
    Seriously, what’s with all the attacks? Just beacuse you guys don’t eat meat, it doesn’t make you better than those who do. I think it’s time for you to get off your high horse. People eat meat. Get over it!
    And Ingrid – I thought you ‘unsubscribed’. Why did you come back? Terri – geesus. What’s with Hitler and Nazi references? You seriously need to calm down. This post has nothing to do with any of those things.

    Reply
  23. yellowtrace

    Ok, so it looks like we definitely have our very first controversial post here on yellowtrace. This is good stuff as I believe that differing opinions, and a healthy dose of debate is good for people. If we all think along the same lines, the world simply couldn’t function the same way.

    Now, I certainly don’t want to stop anyone from voicing their opinion. In fact I would like to encourage you to participate. But this is just a little reminder for us all to keep it clean and not attack any one person individually. We are all adults, and we all have the right to our own opinions. As much as I’d love for you all to agree with me ALL the time (HA! Actually I don’t really, just thought I’d break the tension with a bit of humour – how am I doing?)

    Just for the record – I would like to make it VERY clear that I do not support cruel animal slaughter, and I didn’t hear any of that come from other meat eaters either. This post/ and yellowtrace in general is here to encourage others to stretch themselves beyond their comfort zone, look at things differently as that is where growth happens. Sure, sometimes you will get challenged in that space, but there is no reason to jump to conclusions and get defensive. ‘Love & Death’ is from a series of artworks that provoke and challenge. Challenge is good. Lets not get angry.

    Anyway, I’ll now withdraw from this debate and leave it to you guys. Just a reminder – again. Please keep it clean as all nasty and attacking comments will be deleted.

    Reply
  25. Josh

    Terri, you say you work at an animal shelter, not sure if you know but that is pork and beef up there…so unless you run a shelter for livestock I’m not buying into your sympathy vote.

    Beyond that your basically saying anyone who eats meat is predisposed to abusing animals, has no concern for their health and is causing a financial crisis for all of the upstanding citizens like yourself…wow if that’s not a text-book example of misguided self-righteous thinking I don’t know what is.

    Reply
  26. Bojan

    I didn’t know that you are from Serbia or you have Serbian origin, that’s cool :). Srecna slava, pozdrav iz Srbije ;)

    Reply

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