Prior to World War II most people in North America, including Italians, bought their pork at butcher shops. In Italy farmers who were lucky enough to own a pig fattened it up and then had a big party on the day that it was slaughtered. "The Feast Day of the Pig" was one of the happiest in the Italian countryside as that was the one day there was more than enough meat to go around. The rest of the year most people relied on a "vegetarian" diet, though not by choice.

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