A bad day for the pig

A bad day for the pig but a great day for us.
Again this year we butchered our pig.  Of course I grew up in suburban America reading and watching Charlotte's web and thinking "aw poor Wilbur!"  However that didn't stop me from enjoying my bacon and eggs come Sunday morning.  Now I am married to an Italian farmer who's family has deep rooted traditions, one of which is raising and growing our own food.  Of course we aren't able to live completely off of our harvests but we do have a considerable amount of "home grown food" to enjoy.  Every year come January our poor little pig's life comes to an end and this year was no different.  Now pigs aren't the only animals that meets a tragic end here, but it is the one that I don't actually mind observing.  As for the lambs and rabbits I am a bit more squeamish and refuse to partake in their slaughter. Why don't I feel so bad about the pig?  Well for as "clean" as many say they are I still think they are gross, they are mean and if you aren't careful they can run you down and bite especially if it is a mamma pig.  This has never happened to us but they still seem a bit nasty if you ask me. 

This year I decided to document the process as I see so many things that I now see as being part of daily life going undocumented.   I think it is important to do this because there are so many traditions nowadays that are being left by the wayside in the name of progress.  I am glad my husband's family has introduced me to these things as they are all so different than the things I was used to growing up in suburban America.

 The amazing thing about a pig is that nothing gets thrown away.  Traditionally as my father-in-law was saying the butchering of a pig was a big event, you had many people that would come to "help" and there was usually a large feast to follow.   In the past this has always been true, but this year it was just my husband, my in-laws and the two butchers.  My father-in-law said it was because times are good and people eat meat every day not like in the past when meat was a rarity.  It always amazes me how much Italy suffered after the war and how things were always about a generation behind the USA.  My father-in-law was lucky to get meat on holidays as a boy much less any other day of the year. 

The butchering begins with the stunning and bleeding of the pig.  Afterwards the hair is removed with boiling water and the pig is then split and hung for a day to stop the blood.  The hanging is done in our garage and needs to be done on very cold days.  Then the following day the butcher comes and works his magic.  The butcher that comes here is in his 70s he is very able and fast.  It is still amazing to watch him.  From the pig we get sausages, ribs, salame, pork chops, pork loin, capocollo, and prosciutto.  Of course as I said before none of the pig goes to waste, which means that all of the organs are used too.  This is the part that I don't take part in eating.  The lungs, part of the liver, heart and spleen are all ground up and put into a portion of the sausages with orange peel, sugar and raisins to make red sausages.  The liver is also wrapped in "la rettina" and roasted on the fire with bay leaves.  The intestines are washed and separated and used to encase the sausages and the feet are boiled for il "bollito".   The cheeks are cured and sliced like bacon.  And the remainder of things are used to make the most revolting of all in my opinion "la coppa"  A boiled mix of the remaining parts of the pig, usually boiled then put in a sack with a hard boiled egg and orange peel to dry like a sausage then sliced and eaten plain or on bread.

Although I don't like all of the parts of the pig I think that it is great that nothing goes to waste.  It is also comforting knowing exactly how your food is raised and prepared especially nowadays when everything seems to be mass produced.