Meats and Small Game: The Foxfire Americana Library - Foxfire Students (2011)

SLAUGHTERING HOGS

The prime source of meat for the early family in these mountains was hogs. Part of the reason for this can be seen by a quick look at the recipes. There was almost no part of the animal that could not be used. Each farmer who kept hogs on open range in the mountains had his own identifying brand cut into the ear of each of his animals. Hogs were allowed to fatten themselves on the “mast” of the forest—acorns, chestnuts, and so on. As Mann Norton said, “My father generally kept hunnerd fifty, two hunnerd hogs in th’ woods. Most ever’body did. He’d kill ten’r ’twelve at one time off th’ mast just t’eat.” And Bill Lamb said, “I’ve see’d little old-fashioned blue guineas. Little old things wouldn’t grow much longer’n that [indicating about two feet]. An’ I’ve see’d them s’fat ’til their bellies’ud drag along ’til they couldn’t get over a pole in th’ woods much bigger’n my leg.”

Our contacts tell us that the sweetest meat came from hogs fattened on chestnuts. One problem, however, was that instead of rendering into good white lard, the fat of these hogs would boil down into a dark oil. Acorn mast made the meat taste bitter and altered the consistency of the fat. For these reasons, hogs to be slaughtered were often rounded up and brought down out of the mountains to the farms where they were fed on corn for anywhere from a few weeks to over a month. This removed any bitterness from the meat and softened the fat properly for rendering into lard.

Hogs were slaughtered, cut up, cured, and smoked at home. In fact, in many mountain homes today, slaughtering remains a family venture—the only difference being that now there is no more open forest range, so the hogs are kept and fed at the farm until killing time. The actual slaughtering is done in late November when the weather turns cold to stay. Since there were no meat freezers in the mountains, one had to rely on the winter weather to keep the meat from spoiling while it cured.

Most families paid strict attention to the phase the moon was in, and they killed on the first cold day they could get when the moon was “right.” As one said, “If you kill a hog on th’ new of th’ moon, slice it and put it in a pan, it’ll just blow you ’til you can’t fry th’ grease out of it hardly. You got t’kill it on th’ right time of th’ moon. You don’t never want to kill it on th’ new moon.” Another said, “We’d kill hogs on th’ full moon, or just about th’ full moon. While th’ moon was shrinkin’, th’ meat’d shrink. There’d be a lot’a lard an’ grease if it’uz on th’ shrinkin’ of th’ moon. If it’uz on th’ new moon, you wouldn’t make much lard, and th’ meat’d swell up when y’cooked it ’stead’a shrink.” Other farmers would kill their own hogs when the moon was shrinking, but they would take hogs to market when the moon was growing so that the meat would weigh more.

Early in the morning of butchering day, the scalding water was readied. Some farms had a cast-iron bowl about four feet in diameter set in a stone furnace. The bowl was filled with water, a fire built in the furnace, and by the time the hog was killed, the water would be hot. Other families simply had an oil drum tipped half over and filled half full with water. Into this they put heated rocks which heated the water. Others heated water in pots to pour over the carcass. The water in all cases was heated nearly to the boiling point, and ashes were often added to help loosen the hair.

Meanwhile, the hog was killed (either by a sharp blow on the head with a rock or axe head, or by shooting it in the back of the head or between the eyes), and its jugular vein (on the left side of the throat about three inches back from the jawbone) pierced immediately. As one described it, “Stick’im right in th’ goozle’ere.”

When the bleeding slowed, the hog was dragged to the “scaldin’ place” and dipped in the hot water and rolled over to loosen the hair (by pulling or scraping), hauled out and scraped with a not-too-sharp knife, immersed again immediately, and the procedure repeated until most of the hair was off the hide. The hog was not left in the water too long at any one time or the hair would “set” rather than loosen.

ILLUSTRATION 1 Hobe Beasley and John Hopper first lift the hog’s head into a tilted barrel filled with scalding water, and leave it there long enough to loosen the hair.

ILLUSTRATION 2 Hobe, John, Mrs. Hopper, and Lum Williams work over the hog until it is scraped clean.

ILLUSTRATION 3 Scalding water can be poured over places where a few hairs remain and then they too are scraped off, leaving a completely bare carcass. Here Hobe finishes a leg.

ILLUSTRATION 4 The leaders in the back legs are exposed, and the gambling stick is inserted between leader and leg.

If for some reason the hog had to be killed and cleaned away from home, the men often dug a hole in the ground, filled it with water, added rocks heated in the fire, and then dipped the hog in that. Others simply laid the hog on the ground, covered him with burlap sacks, hay, grass, or anything that would help hold the heat, and then poured boiling water over him to loosen the hair. Another told us that they used to hang the hog up by the nose, cut the hide off in three-inch strips (“Hit’ll come plumb off pertiest you ever seen”), and gut it.

When the hide was scraped clean, the hamstring was exposed on both hind legs, and a gambling stick sharpened on both ends—or a singletree—was slipped behind the exposed tendons. The hog was then strung up on a stout pole (see Illustration 5 and Illustration 6), the ends of which were set in forked supports, or in the forks of two nearby trees.

ILLUSTRATION 5 Next the supporting pole is run between the hog’s legs and …

ILLUSTRATION 6 … raised into place, suspending the hog head down. Hot water is again dashed over the carcass, and any spots that still may not be completely clean are scraped again.

ILLUSTRATION 7 The cleaned hog is now ready to gut. Hobe prepares to make the first incision—a long cut down the middle of the underside from crotch to chin.

ILLUSTRATION 8 The first incision is made taking care not to cut the intestinal membrane.

ILLUSTRATION 9 Mrs. Hopper prepares to make the second cut.

ILLUSTRATION 10 The second cut is made, and the intestines drop from the gut cavity and are caught in a tub.

Hot water was then poured over those places not completely clean, and they were scraped again.

Now the neck was cut around the base of the head and through the throat so that the backbone was ringed completely. Then the head was twisted off and set aside to be used as explained in the recipe here. The remaining blood was allowed to drain from the carcass, and then, with a sharp butcher knife, one long, deep cut was made down the middle of the underside from crotch to chin, being careful not to slice the envelope of membrane holding the intestines. Then the large intestine was cut free at the anus, the end pulled out and tied shut, the gullet cut at the base of the throat, the membrane holding the intestines sliced, and the entrails allowed to fall out into a large tub placed under the carcass. The liver was then cut free and the gall bladder excised from its side, and then the liver was cut up and set aside to soak for later use. Also set aside and saved, in most cases, were the lungs, heart, and kidneys. The valves, veins, and arteries were trimmed off the heart, the stomach and small intestines retrieved from the entrails, and all were drained, washed, and set in water to soak while the cutting continued.

When the inside of the carcass was completely cleaned, it was taken down and cut up. If there were enough people, one group might begin scalding a second hog, another might prepare the entrails and organs since most of them had to be used at once, and yet another might cut up the gutted carcass. A sausage pot would be started for the trimmings of lean meat, and a lard pot would be started for all the trimmings of fat which would be rendered the next day.

The cutting operation was done in several ways. Here is the most common: Remove leaf lard while carcass is still hanging. (The leaf lard is that fat which held the intestines.) Throw it into the fat pot to be rendered into lard and cracklin’s. It is not salted and cured. Then make one cut all the way down the middle of the back into the backbone. Take the carcass down and put it on its back on a table or counter. With an axe, chop all the way down both sides of the backbone, close to the backbone, and lift it out. The meat then falls into two pieces. (This is the old way. Nowadays they saw the backbone right down the middle and get pork chops and fat-back.) Now remove the tenderloin. It lies on either side of the backbone’s cavity. Under that is the fatback, which can be taken out if you wish to use it separately in cooking. Now remove the two sections of rib cage by slicing the mesentery between the outside of the ribs and the inside of the middlin’ meat. Each section should come out as one piece.

ILLUSTRATION 11 The large intestine is cut free at the anus, pulled out, and …

ILLUSTRATION 12 … tied off with a cloth strip or cord. The gut cavity is then cleaned completely.

Find the joints, and cut the shoulders and hams off. What’s left is the middlin’ (or “side meat”). This thick slice of meat from each side, if cured and smoked, is the source of country bacon. You simply slice the bacon off the middlin’ meat, cutting in the same direction in which the ribs originally ran. “Streak’a’lean” is the same lean middlin’ meat as the bacon, but it is only salt cured, not smoked.

Now the ribs are placed on a chopping block and cut into two-inch sections and put aside to can, along with the backbone which is cut apart at each vertebra.

Hams, shoulders, middlin’ (and jowls if you wish) are trimmed up. The trimmings are put into either the lard or sausage pots, and the rest is set aside for immediate salting.

The backbones and ribs are usually canned. Tenderloin is often cooked at once, along with the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and head (see recipes for hog, here). Sausage is ground and canned at once. Fat scraps are usually left until the next morning. Then they are cut up and the lard rendered out.