I came across this piece scouring the web for interesting stories/photos on this cold November morning. There is saying around where I was born and raised and it comes from the time when people killed hogs regularly that states, "November's meat will never spoil". Normally, that may be so, but there are exceptions to every rule and warm weather like Alabama has experienced earlier this November would have been "iffy" at best for curing meat the old traditional way. I come from a "hog killing family" on my daddy's side. My granddaddy learned that meat will spoil one November after killing and salting the meat from several hogs. It turned off hot and muggy muggy and then rained for over a week and the meat did spoil.. We normally killed 4-6 hogs in a day and everyone jumped in to help with the festivities. This is done out of doors of course as there is a lot of "banjo work" associated with killing, cutting up, salting/smoking the meat. It was a big day. I started doing this when I was real young and it continued to my grandaddy began to take the hogs to a nearby slaughterhouse as it was just "easier". Then, for those family members who came after me. they would not know the process. Anyhow, I came across this piece of humor and thought some of you might enjoy. Have a great weekend! Jeffery
We always did the hogs on Thanksgiving weekend - Fri, Sat, Sun after Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteSo did the hogs eat the puppies??
ReplyDeleteI urge everyone to click on the link and read this story. Excellent choice.
ReplyDeleteI can see the looks on the guys' faces when they saw the "piglets!" 🤣🤘
ReplyDeleteI can see the look on the guys' faces when they saw the "piglets!"
ReplyDeleteMy son is carrying on the tradition. Breeds & trains dogs, feeds & butchers chickens, hogs & beeves. Feeds a lot of people. Sells goats, eggs, hay. Ducks, geese & dove for sport & dinner.
ReplyDeleteA hog was butchered the day after thanksgiving. The pork belly was trimmed and loaded in the smokehouse with the picnic hams and full hams. The smokehouse had to be checked a couple of times every day. A full ham and the picnic's would come out at Christmas. The picnic's and half the full ham would go in the freeze. At 6 weeks the pork belly would be bacon. At 2 months the other full ham would be country ham.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Jeffery. Great and funny story. It’s a lost art mostly these days but if things go a certain way there will be a massive comeback.Never saw it done personally but the old smokehouse still stands at one family’s old home place.
ReplyDeleteLooked inside last time I was there as I always do and contemplate what life back then was like. Harder than I can probably imagine, and wonder if I coulda done it.
Remind me to tell you my Dad’s cracklins story next time we talk.
ReplyDeleteI will try to remember. My experiences with hog killings were it was a lot of work before and after hog killing day, but it was well worth it. My mother was the best biscuit maker in seven counties that I know of and we had the best smoked bacon, smoked sausage, and country ham nearly every morning all through the 70's the best I recollect. The method is fairly straight forward and simple (think early Americans pioneers). A friend gave me a ham from a wild hog that had been "fed out" with corn. I salted it down in rubber tub and let it cure in the refrigerator about 4-5 years ago with good success. My grandaddy and other experienced hands emphasized to make certain to pack salt down into the joints to insure drying the blood and preventing spoilage. By the way, I priced a "Country Ham" salt/smoked in the store the other day. I believe it was 21lbs and the price was $68 plus some change.
DeleteI was 8 or 9 when my Dad told me to go with my Grandmother out to the chicken shed one Sunday morning after church. Grandma caught two chickens, in between trying to stomp on mice with her bare feet. There was a three foot high stump with two nails about 1" apart outside the coop door and a hatchet hanging from a nail on the wall just inside the coop door. Grandma chopped the heads of both chickens one at a time after laying their necks down between the two nails. After they had bled out, she plucked them, then gutted them, cut the lower legs off and had them back inside seasoned and into the oven in about 30 minutes.
ReplyDeleteGrandma was one heck of a woman. She rose every day at 5:00AM and to knead two loaves of bread and put them in the oven with dough that has been rising overnight. Then she went back to bed for another hours sleep until she got up to start breakfast., then out to the garden to water, weed, transplant and harvest. In late summer her day were taken up with canning all of the excess produce from the garden. The walls of the cellar in her home were lined with hundreds of quart mason jars with every vegetable that came from her garden.
Grandma lived to 103 and was still out in her garden every day until well into her 90's.
Nemo
Sounds like my granny.
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