Word: meats
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Back in 1812, all the dock workers around Troy, N.Y. knew "Uncle Sam" Wilson. A tall, talkative meat packer with a friendly word for everybody, Uncle Sam was often on hand to see his Government-consigned barrels of pork and beef loaded on boats and sent down the Hudson for the war against the British. When one passenger asked an Irish watchman at the dock what the "U.S." stamped on each barrel meant, the watchman had a ready answer: "It must mean Uncle Sam ... he's feeding the army...
...because he breeds faster and, pound for pound, gives back more of his food as flesh than any other farm mammal. It's true that he chomps down about 40% of the U.S. corn crop every year. But in return he supplies half or more of the U.S. meat supply...
Through the centuries, the hog has obligingly accommodated himself to man's changing tastes and needs. Refrigeration put an end to the small-boned, fat-heavy hogs; consumers wanted leaner meat. But hog farmers, working to breed their animal out of the barrel and into the icebox, soon found themselves in another fix: the big-boned hogs of the early 20th Century were shorter on fat all right, but their giant hams were sized to feed an army rather than a family, and they were stringy besides. After World War I, hog breeders went to work again and finally...
...spotted by a motorist in an open field. Though one hunting party put the torch to 40 acres of brush, the big cat remained at large. That night, one M. D. Douglass swore he saw the fugitive sneaking back into the zoo; attendants hung chunks of drugged meat on nearby fences, but the varmint went unseen and uncaught...
Britain's election campaign was plodding along, with the eyes of the politicians and voters fixed on medicine shelves and kitchen cupboards. The Labor government's Ministry of Food upped meat rations by 10%; it had already boosted the "sweets" ration from 4 to 4½ ounces of candy a week. Wailed London's Tory Daily Mail: "The glory of Britain has indeed fallen low if the Socialists can buy votes with a rasher [of bacon] and two penn'orth of lollipops...