What Is A Hoover Hog?

[PsalmSinger]

http://classroom.synonym.com/what-is...-12081843.html


What Is a Hoover Hog?


Before the Great Depression, impoverished families who dines on armadillos referred to them as "possum on the half-shell."

The Great Depression saw the collapse of the United States' economy, rampant unemployment and a broad sense of hopelessness. At that time, President Herbert Hoover increasingly became, in the eyes of many Americans, a grim and inept leader. In turn, a new lexicon came into being -- words like "Hoovervilles," "Hoover blankets" and "Hoover hogs."

Words of Desperation

President Hoover quickly became one of many scapegoats for the Depression; his name was quickly attached to the the stark circumstances to which America's poor became accustomed. The newspapers draped over men and women sleeping in the streets became "Hoover blankets." Makeshift communities filled with shacks of tin and and cardboard became "Hoovervilles." Empty pockets pulled inside out became "Hoover flags." And all over the South, as starving families resorted to eating almost anything they could find, animals once seen only as pests became "Hoover hogs." These creatures included squirrels, jackrabbits and, most famously, armadillos.

[Sherree]

Nothing wrong with eating squirrels and rabbits. I've eaten both. There's still a lot of people down here that hunt both squirrels and rabbits. Not because they're poor, but to supplement their own food storage. But, my great-grandparents and grandparents during the Hoover Days raised their own hogs, of the swine variety, no armadillos. I've never heard of eating armadillos. Do they taste like "chicken".

[Wiskey Reb]

I never tried to eat one, but I did have a go at catching one. Ever see a two hundred pound guy get dragged around the yard by an armadillo? Strong little buggers...and no sense of humor.

[Sherree]

I never tried to eat one, but I did have a go at catching one. Ever see a two hundred pound guy get dragged around the yard by an armadillo? Strong little buggers...and no sense of humor.

That, I would have loved to see! Quite a battle, huh?

[Wiskey Reb]

That, I would have loved to see! Quite a battle, huh?

I won't be doing an encore.... But no, not much of a battle at all. Amardllo 1: Wiskey Reb 0.

[PlumBob]

Nope, not going to eat an armadillo. Armadillo's (the 9-banded ones) carry leprosy - certainly not All of them, but they are a common carrier of it. IMVHO, not a good idea to try to pet one. And no, they don't seem to have any sense of humor at all.