We posted an entry last week about the upcoming pig situation. Now that it has passed, I wanted to let folks know how it turned out (and perhaps why).

Vegetarians may or may not want to read this – up to you.

The great dilemma, of course, was whether to slaughter (killing, skinning or scalding, gutting, and splitting the carcass in two) and butcher (cutting up the sides of pork into useable pieces) ourselves. Obviously, for a busy family farm, that’s a lot of work, and a challenging process in many respects.

We decided to do it ourselves. Several people manifested their opinions on the subject – some for, some against. It was amazing to see the polarization on the matter. And to some extent, the disgust of meat-eaters towards the slaughtering and butchering process. What a debate!

The slaughtering went quite well. We really felt like novices, but the pigs died with relatively little stress (especially compared to the alternative: getting them loaded onto a trailer. Yikes!). We decided to skin rather than scald, mostly because of the implications of dunking a 200 pound pig into a vat of scalding hot water. In retrospect, it would have yielded a better looking carcass, I think, and it might not have been that much more difficult than skinning if we were set up for scalding. We might try scalding next year, if the team is still willing.

So, by Saturday night, we had a makeshift meat locker set up in the garden, with a panel fence and also a couple of electric wires to guard against nocturnal carnivores (no, I don’t mean you, Nicolas). It was a strange sight, having the sides hung up in the garden… we also finished after dark, and needed the extra illumination of construction lights to finish skinning and cleaning. I have to admit that the lighting made the scene even eerier (if that’s even a word).

Sunday morning came butchering time. We set up a temporary butcher shop in the gallery, at my parents’ house, and brought in the meat. That took a fair bit of lifting – those pigs didn’t look overly heavy but it took a fair bit of heaving to get the sides onto the table.

The first one was the hardest – trying to figure out where to cut (between joints & such). What made it harder is that we were mostly following North American cut charts, which seem to use the bandsaw quite a bit. We just had a hand saw, so it was a lot of work. In the afternoon, Jean-Pierre figured there might be a different perspective on cut charts elsewhere in the world, and a short search revealed a more appropriate European cut chart. We tried to follow that one for the last side, but by then fatigue was starting to set, and we just wanted to finish. By dinner time, we had a refrigerator full of meat, and many roasts already vacuum sealed and in the freezer.

Rendered lard, before it turns white

By that time, of course, everyone was exhausted!

We salted the bacon last night (Monday), and finished grinding this morning. All that’s left now is rendering lard – everything else is put away.

What experience that was… but the freezer is full of meat, and we are all that much more aware of the effort that goes into producing food. I’ll admit that it’s more work to make bacon than to grow a carrot (except that we never need to weed bacon, right? Or fuss about its germination rate?), but a carrot will not a BLT make.

Great big thanks to all helping hands: Nicolas, Clement, Philippe, Melanie, Jean-Pierre, Catherine, Françoise, and Stephanie. Well done everyone!

So, will all that said and done, if anyone has questions, fire away. In the meantime, the pulled pork is almost done…

pigs