This Week in Bacon
Westerners become accustomed at an early age to the idea that Eastern cultures engage in a bunch of wacky practices. China is a particularly strong example of the type–whether its people getting their ears cleaned with a metal rod in a public park or eating countless and incomparably bizarre foods. We grow so used to the idea that China = Strange that it is probably easy to forget that a lot of the crap we Westerners do is equally strange.
Take the Dunmow Flitch Trials, which pit married couples against one another in a storytelling contest, with the winners getting a “flitch”–a whole side of bacon.
What the hell’s up with that? Let’s let the incredulous Chinese news agency Xinhua explain:
A bizarre ritual dating back to the 12th century was staged on Saturday in Essex of Britain.
The “Dunmow Flitch Trials,” held every four years, requires each couple, who should be married for at least a year and a day to tell the story of their marriage, from how they met to the proposal and how their families reacted.
The winner can win half a pig by trying to prove to a mock-court that they have the happiest marriage.
Several couples won this year, including (and I had no idea what this meant until I looked it up) “Des Raynor and his agony aunt wife Claire.”
More here from the trials’ official website.
