Pork

REMEMBER those ads touting "the other white meat"? They've been very successful, as consumer demand for pork continues to grow and supermarket prices stay firm. But farmers who paid for the promotion are understandably unhappy -- hog prices hit a 50-year low last month and most producers are still selling their swine for half the cost of raising the animals.The nation's 115,000 pork producers have seen price drops of as much as 80 percent within a year. Political fallout from their financial toll threatens the success of the landmark Freedom to Farm Act of 1996, which steered national policy away from deep farm subsidies.

Meat in the middle. Soul on the edge. Pork belly inspires thoughts like that for me. Maybe it's just the fat rushing to my brain. But when I introduce someone to pork belly - to soft meat surrounded by fat that is meltingly tender on the inside and crisp on the outside - what I usually hear (through the moans) is, "That is to die for." "Yes," I reply cheerfully. "And with that in your arteries, it won't be long." Pork belly, of all things, has become a food-world darling. Wait - isn't pork belly the stuff that's traded as a commodity on Wall Street?

Jennifer Debnam cringes every time she hears a television report or reads a newspaper article about the H1N1 flu pandemic and - inevitably - comes to the part where the disease is called "swine flu." Debnam raises 12,000 hogs a year on her family's Kent County farm and she, like others in the industry, is losing megabucks this year - which they attribute to the misperception that you can catch flu from eating pork chops or a plate of ribs. Exports (and prices) are down sharply as Russia and China have put major restrictions on American pork products after questioning the health of the nation's hog population, experts said.

WASHINGTON -- Tucked away in the 1996 federal transportation spending bill is a gift for the good citizens of Oregon: $15 million to reduce the debt of the Port of Portland shipyard.No such budget request came from the Clinton administration or the House of Representatives. The item was added by Republican Sen. Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon, chairman of the Appropriations Committee and its transportation subcommittee.Mr. Hatfield argued that debt relief was needed to offset the loss of business when Alaskan oil was shipped directly abroad, bypassing Portland.

CHICAGO -- The U.S. Agriculture Department will consider buying more pork and quit lending money to expand hog production as the agency seeks more ways to lift hog prices that are near 57-year lows.Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said yesterday that his agency also is encouraging meatpackers to set a minimum price they will pay for hogs to prevent further price deterioration, and he encouraged bankers to be flexible with loan repayments by hog producers."We are moving as quickly as we can, exploring every option we may have under the law, to help producers get through this very difficult time," Glickman told farm broadcasters at a news conference.

ATLANTA -- The pig mongers would have us know from their TV commercials that pork is the new white meat. Maybe, but political pork emphatically remains the same old red meat to politicians.Not to deny virtue its moment, but President Clinton's preening over the first-ever presidential line-item veto was -- well, to persist in a metaphor that is beginning to go bad, hogwash.The president declared the dawn of a new era of fiscal prudence with the advent of a veto that lets presidents blue-pencil spending items they think untoward.

SO MUCH FOR austerity, that clarion call of Republican fiscal conservatives in Congress. Pork is back.Is it ever! Just look at the 1,600 "high-priority" projects included in a monstrous transportation bill about to clear the House of Representatives.This is pure, 100-percent lard that will cost taxpayers a staggering $18 billion over the next six years.Nearly every congressional district gets its share of goodies -- about four projects per member. Representatives who oppose such blatant taxpayer giveaways, such as Delaware's lone House member, Republican Michael N. Castle, wind up with nothing.

WASHINGTON -- Calling themselves "The Porkbusters," a group of congressmen have introduced legislation to eliminate 642 federally funded projects, including three in Maryland, that they say qualify as Grade A pork.Baltimore's $161 million Christopher Columbus Center of Marine Research and Exploration was among the so-called pork-barrel projects targeted. In fiscal 1992, $26 million in federal funds was appropriated for the Inner Harbor project.To be included in the legislation introduced yesterday, projects were judged on whether their sponsors circumvented the legislative process to get them approved and not on whether they deserved funding.

The dark months, between holiday frenzy and spring fever, are a good time to get re-acquainted with old friends.Make the evening mellow and easy; invite the kids, if there are any, and eat in front of the fire, if you have one.My mother called her one-dish pork-chop recipe "easy meal." It was one of the first things she learned to cook, and a great company dish -- especially when pork chops cost about 35 cents a pound. They're a little pricier now, but you can still make this menu for less than $4 a person, not including wine.

Julie Feeser's challenge: To get lean pork chops, ham and bacon on your plate.Her tools: sows that weigh between 350 and 650 pounds and spend most of their days lounging, and boars that weigh at least that much and foam at the mouth to display their masculinity.The result: cute piglets with tiny snouts and curlicue tails thatplay with each other in their pens and stare shyly but curiously at visitors when interrupted.The whole process stinks.But that'sto be expected when 4,000 hogs pass through the Feesers' barns everyyear.