It’s primarily a cultural issue. It has been claimed that the Chinese tamed the pig first, followed by the Arabs with the goat and the Europeans with the cow, while everyone else did it with the chicken.
Pigs could and would consume leftovers from the settlement, demanding neither more grasslands (which are scarce owing to population density) nor special feed, according to Chinese farmers’ traditional way of life.
Pigs were probably the first “green” mammal because they were essentially trash compactors and could be fed crop pieces that humans do not consume. The hogs produced important byproducts in addition to food.
The Chinese valued this association between hogs and low maintenance, low cost, high value items.
Hence, hog-based cuisine was created, and in hard times, this was expanded to include eating the entire animal (blood, trotters, intestines, ears, tail etc). This has persisted up to this point.
