The home-cured salumi are to be treasured, using free-range mangalitsa porkers for the likes of ripe, purple coppa, smoky speck or fennel pollen salami.
Only the prime minister and the porker know for sure, and neither have commented to date.
Arlen Specter was named "porker of the year" for 2003 in honor of his habit of signing off on appropriations bills packed with seemingly gratuitous, and often comical-sounding, federal handouts.
"It's worse than ever, and it's even more egregious because the Republicans are in charge, and everyone thought that they would be fiscally responsible," said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, an advocacy group that named Mr. Gibbons "Porker of the Month" for the pool provision.
Fiscal conservatives also object to his love of pork-barrel spending, a vice he shares with Mr Murtha.Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog, named Mr Lott "porker of the month" in May for his plan to waste your money on a "railroad to nowhere" in Mississippi.
A Republican congresswoman from Kansas who voted against the first round of Hurricane Sandy relief and noted her opposition to "pork" in the bill was attacked in 2010 by a Tea Party congressional candidate for being crowned a "porker of the month".
To Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog group, he was a "porker" of a politician who showed "a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers".
Jenkins' "porker of the month" label was the result of $2 million she requested for the reconstruction of Kasold Drive in Lawrence, Kan.
Against a backdrop of pigs in a sty, the ad calls Mr. Santorum "a porker's best friend" for supporting earmarks for Pennsylvania while he was in the Senate.
It was a real porker of a book, four inches thick and 1,997 pages long.
