I had a very different experience this past Christmas. I was invited to watch and help slaughter two pigs with my host family for Christmas. They apparently do this every year and sell the meat. Last year I went back to the U.S. to be with my family for the holidays so this was the first time that I was able to participate. I honestly did more watching than participating.
I am a huge animal lover so I thought that this was going to be a really terrible experience for me, but I was actually able to get through it without too much difficulty. That being said, I have no desire to ever see that again. Which is partially why I probably will not be watching my own video of this event for a long time. It is posted below, but I will warn you I think that it is hard to watch.
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| Sign advertising that they will be selling Pig meat on December 24 |
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| Tying down the first pig |
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| Cleaning the dead pig with boiling water |
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| They stuck a corn cob in it to close up the knife hole and shaved off all of the hair with knives |
It was an all-ages event. The sun must have been in this little girl's eyes when I took the picture, because she was very happily carrying the fat and pig parts from the pig to the chopping table. The kids even fought over who got to carry the bigger pieces.
This little girl below was touching everything. She would go over and touch the pig that was hanging up then wander around. At one point I saw her eating cotton candy. I can only hope that she washed her hands first. I pulled large knives out of her hands a couple of times but everyone seemed to be fine with her playing with the pig skin/fat below with a large knife.
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| Pig heart |
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| Almost as soon as the meat was off of the pig people started showing up and they sold the meat |
Graphic indeed. A well placed warning. But slaughtering animal for food is as old as man. Most of us only see the finished product in the grocery store. You know the old adage about not eating sausage if you say how it was made. Yet more disturbing is the sight of the two year old girl wielding that knife--and apparently with the full blessing of the grown ups. Are we over protective or are they reckless?
ReplyDeleteWow, amazing photos. I couldn't watch the whole video - it was the squealing that got to me. It's clearly a multi-generational event. Are most of the participants family or do some friends and neighbors also help? Did the family save some of the meat for themselves?
ReplyDeleteI believe that most of the participants were members of the family, but it seems like more than half of my town is related to each other somehow so it's always hard for me to tell. As for the meat, right away they started cooking some of it for dinner so I imagine that they kept some more of it for themselves. There was also a ton of extra fat that they probably kept to cook with.
DeleteI had to bail when the pig started squealing. My goodness. That is quite a process and you are a great documentarian.
ReplyDeleteIt was quite the process that continued long after I left. Living close to pigs (there are some in my backyard) has made me realize that they make that terrible squealing sounds fairly frequently. Not only when they are being killed. So it actually wasn't as traumatizing for me as I had previously thought.
DeleteOh for heavens sake! Twenty four Christmases you spend in Big A, and for the rest of your life when people ask you your most memorable Xmas memory, it will be butchering a pig . Plan for Xmas 2015-butchering a buffalo in Kansas.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for making a big plan for Xmas 2015 in Big A, but could we maybe stay away from the butchering?
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