Origin: Europe, Asia
Etymology: Old English bar, from Germanic.   From the Suidae family, like the pig.

Female: wild sow

The boar is a proud animal of haughty bearing that doesn’t like being treated like a pig! In pagan times, it was sacrificed to the gods; later, in medieval and renaissance days, a spit-roasted boar was the centerpiece of medieval English Christmas feasts. Its head was presented on the table with great fanfare and was celebrated in the Boar’s Head Carol, still sung today.

Its large triangular head and its stocky body make this wild pig an imposing presence. The male can weigh 150 to 160 kg, while the sow weighs around 100 kg. The boar has a long snout and two little filiform ears, unlike the pig which has big turned-down ears. Its tail, 25 to 30 cm long, hangs down. 

It is in Horace’s writings that we find the earliest culinary praise of the boar: “To all who find their meat tasteless,” he wrote, “I recommend boar meat; the banquet table will groan under the animal’s weight.”