Piggy Processing Pron...........(GRAPHIC)

[Smokin Turkey]

Great thread!

These little guys look delicious!

 

[MTHank]

Bob "VERY NICE" is all I can say. Anytime I see people as families I am "ENVIOUS"! I never had that "family" thing when I was growing up and sad to say it continued into my adult life. It is great that you can carry on the family tradition. The pron looks like a GREAT tradition. And GOOD eats.

 

[hossrocks]

That is a great post I've never seen the process. Please explain "chicharonnes"? Is it the same as cracklins?

 

[BobBrisket]

Jeez that all looks good! And nice to see pigs raised the way they should be.
Two questions:
1) Please educate an ignorant Englishman, what are chicharrones please?
2) I love the wine bottle-lamps hanging around the edge of the roof in the first picture, can you tell me how the bottoms are cut off please? I'd like to make some and have tried in the past using a hacksaw with a ceramic tile-cutting blade and the bottles always crack:frown:

Chicharrones or pork rinds is basically the pig skin with a layer of fat still on it that is cut into squares and then fried in it's own lard till golden brown and very crispy. Carnitas are made from the meat and are also deep fried in the lard leftover from the Chicharrones. As for the wine bottles, my folks bought those at a local swap meet. I also wondered how the bottoms were cut off. I'm wondering if maybe they are just made that way, without the bottoms, for that specific type of use.

Very cool Bob! Thanks for sharing!

You guy's ever do that in the snow? :roll:

Never in the snow. We just don't get any here. A blustery winter day in the middle of winter is still in the 40's, but most of the time in the 50's-low 60's.

Where's the beer? Isn't that a violation of fire code?

We have a red beer with breakfast, just to get the blood pumping and then we break out the ice chests after the work is done and it's time to eat. We've been known to smooth things over with the local FD byt sending them off in the same fashion as our Postal Carrier. Funny thing is, he always knows when we are cooking out or smoking cause he says he can smell it from blocks away. During the summer, when he's working on Saturdays, he just comes straight to the backyard and hand delivers the mail and we always send him off with a plate for lunch. Funny thing is, (small world) we later found out that his wife is related to my good buddy Cooper's wife.

Not to steal Bob's thunder, but I thought this piece written by my dad, who was born in 1911 in rural Texas, might add a little to this great thread.

"There was no R.E.A. then, therefore no electricity, hence no refrigeration. This had a tremendous effect on how people ate. What was cooked for the noon meal couldn't be served for the evening meal in hot weather, because it would sour and also food poisoning was a great danger. What food that was left at noon was thrown in the slop bucket for the hogs. In this manner, the food that would have spoiled was, in effect, recycled by the pigs who furnished pork to be eaten in the fall.

There being no refrigeration, the hog butchering took place in the fall on a day cold enough to chill the meat all the way thru, but not cold enough to freeze the outside, thus trapping the body heat inside. The hog that had lived on swill all his life had been switched to corn a month or so before butchering. Nobody had ever head about cholesterol, so the fatter the hog, the better.

A fire was built under a pot, which measured around 4' x 6' x 2' and the water brought to about 180 degrees F. The hog was walked to near the vat where he was hit between the eyes with a heavy hammer and his throat was cut with a large keen butcher knife to drain the carcass of its blood. He was then rolled into the vat and submerged in the hot water to loosen the hair, after which everyone pitched in to scraping all the hair off with a relatively dull knife.

When the pig was cleaned of hair, a slip was cut on the back legs just above the feet so that a sharp piece of wood could be stuck behind the Achilles tendon. A block and tackle was hooked in the middle of the wood and the pig was housted high enough for his head to clear the ground. Using a sharp knife, a slip was made from between the hind legs to the jowl and the pig was de-boweled. The liver and heart were pulled out and sent to the house to be cooked for lunch. This was the first meat of any kind to be eaten since the winter before, except for chicken and very salty "fillet of sows bosom". The next treat was back bone and loin. There will never be food as good as this was. There is an old saying "Hunger is the best tonic for an appetizer".

All the fat was stripped from the intestines to be made into lard, and the intestines turned inside out and stripped and cleaned to be used as sausage casing. From the pig there were sausage, salted bacon or "middling meat", ham and shoulders, also spare rips, lard and lye soap. The scraps of fat were thrown into a large black kettle in the back yard with a small fire under it. The fat was slowly boiled from the tissue and strained in a pure liquid form into buckets where it set as solid white lard. The pieces of tissue that were left were called cracklings. One of the dietary treats of the year was created by mixing cracklings with cornbread to make "crackling bread". Of course the taste buds were not jaded by cookies, ice cream cones, Babe Ruth bars, banana splits, etc., so any variation from every day diet was a treat. This all furnished the last of the meat, meal and molasses diet."

No thunder stolen at all. Great history lesson right there. Now I have a better understanding as to why we hang the meat for a couple hours. My grandfather would tell me it was to let it cool down and to give it time to "stretch back out and relax from the initial killing process."
The corn diet really makes a HUGE difference in the pig's overall quality. The fat comes out alot whiter, almost translucent, which makes for better lard. And, if the organ meats are consumed, the corn diet helps clean them out as well. Plus, there is a big difference in odor and taste in a hog that was "cleaned" out prior too in comparison to one that was still on a slop or swill diet right up to the killing. My dad tells me stories about when he was a kid and his dad and brothers would get together for a harvest. It was customary for the men to take a swig of the animals blood to judge the overall quality, care, and diet the animal had recieved up until it was killed. Sweet tasting blood meant that everything had been done right and bitter blood meant something had not been done right. If it was "your" animal that was being harvested, it was a direct reflection on you as to the quality of food and care that had been given. They took a lot of pride in raising a good animal. My grandfather used the hammer method for many years. Matter of fact, my dad still has it. We know mostly use a.22 (head shot) to bring the animal down and then a sharp knife into the heart to stop the beating quickly. To find the heart, you bend the left hoof all the way back and where the tip of the hoof touches the chest, the heart is right under that point. For goats, sheep we cut the throat. We've had pigs snap back out of the initial blow with the hammer and bust of of pens and go after us. The .22 keeps them down. My grandad said he prefered the knife to the heart because he thought it would make for better meat in the end. This way was the heart was stopped right away, and there wasn't as much kicking, fighting, and stress for the animal and release of hormones and excessive adrenaline into the meat. When we were in the process of putting the animal down, it was all business. No joking around was allowed or tolerated. He would tell us that at the very least we could give the animal a quick and humane death and respect it for the simple fact that we were taking it's life to continue ours. My dad said his brother got clocked one time by my grandfather for goofing around during this process. It never happened again. I believe it too. Once the heart was stopped, a cut to the throat followed and the animal was lifted up with the pulley or the come along. Gravity then bled the animal. My grandfather had the whole set up in his old house. He had the pulley in the cross beams of the shed, the block and tackle, and even had set up a concrete floor with a drain so that clean up was easier. Shaving was usually done on a table since there was no way to immerse the pig into the water.
The organs were then handed off to my grandmother along with the large intestine for making the "Machito". The kids were given the job of spreading the intestine out on a plywood board and running water through it with the hose over and over so that it would be used to either tie up the Machito, or cut up for tripitas. We were also given the job of shaving and skinning the animals head. Nothing was wasted.
In the picture where my dad is holding the chicharron you will see a pot with a towel over it. The pot contains all the little bits and slivers of meat that had settled to the bottom of the fryer after we were done with the skins and carnitas. This stuff is like gold. Crispy little bits of fried meat. It gets put onto a warn corn tortilla and some of Mom's hot red salsa put on top. Dang, it's good. My mouth is watering just thinking about all this.
Another reason why it was done during the colder months is because there are no flies at that time and that makes for a cleaner process. Man, this has really brought back some memories for me too. If any of you are ever in my area.........look me up. We will do it up right!!

 

[big brother smoke]

Fabulous post, Bob! Brethren putlitzer prize in the making!

 

[Goose]

Great food and family-does not get better than that! Thanks for the terrific post.

 

[Fastball]

Great post. Thanks Bob.

 

[N8man]

Outstanding Pictorial, Bob!!! Thank You for Posting it...

 

[Mike - CSBBBQ]

Great show Bob! Thank you for sharing brings back good memories

 

[cvan]

Nice pictures brother you got more patience with a computer than I do.
That brings back some memories. Like from last year. I killed and scaped a hog so I could cook him in the ground at a squirrel hunt down in the mountains turned out good next time will be better.

 

[milehigh]

Great thread Bob! I'll echo all the family remarks. I am blessed to be in a big one also.
The only pig slaughter that i was involved with was when i lived in Alaska. When i rented a house, it came along with the former tenants hog, that we agreed to finish raising. There was a knock on the door one Sunday morning, and i was fresh off of a 2 day party and not feeling all that great. There was the lanlord with a 45 and a forklift. Well......you get the rest of the story.

Paul

 

[Westexbbq]

Very well done, Robert; great read and great pics.
Nice to see you, the folks and family all working together and the end products gotta be real good.
Thanks.

 

[MAB52]

That was awesome, thanks for sharing, Bob.

 

[ModelMaker]

Yeah, well I remember when I was a kid we'd get into the car and drive clear uptown to the Piggly-Wiggly to get our meat. Sometimes the meat case was so cold our fingers would get a little chilly!!!
I'll write some other time about how we used to get green beans and tomatos.
ModelMaker

 

[Alexa RnQ]

Hall of Fame post!!!
Oh, for some *real* lard and chicharrones!

 

[BobBrisket]

If you all want a "how to" site for carnitas and chicharrones..........I have this one bookmarked and refer to it quite often.

http://rollybrook.com/Page Directory.htm

Lots of authentic info in there. It's a great read too!!

 

[igolf2]

This is what it's all about - something real special about a gathering of family and friends and a cookout. It's why I have a pig roast every year even if it's not a "special" occasion.

Wonderful pictures Bob - Thank you for sharing your memories and your knowledge!

 

[Dsorgnzd]

2) I love the wine bottle-lamps hanging around the edge of the roof in the first picture, can you tell me how the bottoms are cut off please? I'd like to make some and have tried in the past using a hacksaw with a ceramic tile-cutting blade and the bottles always crack:frown:

I used to have one of these http://images.delphiglass.com/image_add/125862_10.jpg gadgets, which had a little cutting wheel (like a glass cutter) on a frame; you put the bottle on the rollers, and turn it around, so the cutting wheel scores a shallow groove all the way around the bottle. Next, you use a propane torch, or even a candle, to heat the bottle around the circumference of the groove. Last, you stick it in water and the rapid contraction of the hot area causes the bottle to break cleanly all the way around.

 

[BarberQue]

Nice post Bob, reminds me when I grew up in Tenn. everybody down the creek would get together and help each other slaughter hogs.Don't see any of that since I been in Michigan.

 

[Que-Dawg]

Reminds me of my growing up,,, best reading I’ve done in a long time,,, really enjoyed bro.