Emily Addams, foodie professor of women’s studies at Arbor State―a land grant university in Northern California―finds herself an unlikely suspect in the poisoning of a man she barely knows: Professor Peter Elliott of Plant Biology, the hotshot developer of a new genetically modified corn. How did her cornbread (unmistakable for its goat cheese and caramelized onions) end up in his hand as he lay in the smelly muck of the university’s historic hog yard? As Emily and her colleagues try to identify who and what has poisoned Peter, they also struggle to keep a new and corporate-minded administration from defunding the women’s and ethnic studies programs. In the process of solving the mystery, Emily and her network deepen their ties to each other, save their programs, and uncover some of the dark secrets of a university whose traditionally communal values are being polluted by a wave of profit-fueled ideals. A satiric novel about the struggle between communal and market forces in academia—and, by implication, the globe, Oink maintains that communities based on pleasure, mutual care, and a thirst for social justice still have power to improve our private lives and public worlds. Oink comes with recipes.