Jon Mooallem has been a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine since 2006 and is a writer at large for Pop-Up Magazine, the live magazine in San Francisco. He’s also contributed to This American Life, The New Yorker, Harper’s, Wired, and many other magazines. He is the author of Wild Ones and American Hippopotamus. He and his family live in San Francisco. Find him at jonmooallem.com

It’s What’s for Dinner

Nearly a century ago, three men waged a quixotic campaign to bring African hippos to the American dinner table that ended up on Capitol Hill.