A few days ago, I was trying to see if emerge has a special command to show the number of installed, of in-world, and of in-system packages, so I ran:


% emerge --help
emerge: the other white meat ([snip])
Usage:
[snip]

In five months, I will be a Gentoo user of six years, but I’d never paid attention to the first line of the help message of emerge command.

I was wondering what does “the other white meat” means? I searched the internet, including the Gentoo Forums, nothing came out on that subject. So, I cloned Portage, and looked for an answer in commits, hoping they would shade a light with a clear message. I did find the commit that added the line, the message reads:

default --help should be usable, so make the extended output require --verbose

It was authored by Mike Frysinger on 2007-03-22. Two years before I started using Gentoo Linux, can’t argue it’s after so I didn’t read about it. The commit message doesn’t say anything about the “meat,” I hit a dead end.

I could just post a question on forums, or email Mike Frysinger, his email address is in commit. I might, but now I’d like to speculate what that line means.

Gentoo Linux’s mascot is Gentoo penguin, which lives around Antarctica, and penguin is birds, like chickens that we human consume. So, you can see which direction I am going.

Since chickens as we know are white meat, so Gentoo penguin is also white meat, that I believe. I don’t know for sure since I have never eaten any penguin meat, and not as if I’d like to.

I think “the other white meat” might mean that, but I could be terribly awfully wrong about everything. It might just some personal experience of the author had, and has nothing to do with the flesh or any penguin.

I might never know the answer, but I am okay with that, it’s just another interesting line and humor which I don’t know.

Apparently, some people did eat penguin.

Shade a light, or flap a wing?