Here is the second story I wanted to share with the mailing list. If you didn't know about butchering, you will learn with this story! Had you ever wondered where the term "pork barrel" came from? This storry tells you what a pork barrel is. :-) Butchering When the hogs were butchered, it was necessary for the whole family to pitch in to get the meat processed quickly as there were no freezers then and many people did not even have an ice box. The animal was not fed for about two days, being given plenty of water to help flush out its insides. The family would have to watch the weather reports for it must be cold, in the fourty degree area, but not quite freezing or it would be too hard to work. Water was heated over an open fire, if possible to the point of boiling to be ready to scald the carcass as it was lowered into the barrel. The hog was usually stabbed in the jugular vein and then led to the corn crib where it was hoisted on a block and tackle to hang over the scalding barrel. There were some who made what was called blood sausage and they would hang the carcass over a pail to catch the blood, but we didn't do that. It was more common among the French people. Years ago there was a market for lard since Spry, Crisco, etc. were not on the grocery shelves, so the hogs were usually quite fat. As the layers of fat were cut off, runners (usually the 8 to 15 year olds) hurried them to the house in milk pails where they were cut into small chunks and fried out. Both the kitchen and basement stoves were going and all of the cast iron skillets were put into use. As the lard was melted, it was poured through a cheese cloth in a colander into 20 gallon crocks. Then the residue was put into the press to get every bit of lard out. This was kept seperate because it might be a bit discolored, not pretty and white as the first batch, which might be sold as surplus -- at maybe 5 cents a pound. Meanwhile, someone was cutting up the meat. The side meat (bacon so fat you'd never buy it now) was salted down. Sometimes, if more than one animal was being butchered, some hams were salted down also, because there wouldn't be time to prevent spoilage. The loin was cut carefully from the bones and the bones were cooked for supper. The loin was sliced into small slices and seasoned and gently fried. A small amount of melted lard was poured into a five-gallon crock, and a layer of loin slices laid in it. Then another layer of lard and slices until the crock was full to about two inches from the top. Then an inch of lard was added. As it congealed in the cold cellar the lard preserved the meat. Other meat from the carcass was cut into small pieces for the sausage. This was sometimes funny because Pa was partial to fat and threw in lots of fatty chunks and Ma would reach in and grab them and put them into the skillets where the lard was rendering. After they were all drained and cooled, these cracklins were very tasty. The pieces were put through the meat grinder which was clamped to the old basement table. It was hard work and each person had to take turns grinding. About 1930 Frank and Clarence had figured out how to jack up the Model T and run a pulley to the feed grinder and then devised a way to hook up the meat grinder the same way. It seems to me that we couldn't keep up with it, running the pails full of chunks out and bringing in the ground meat. It saved hours of work and muscle ache. The meat was seasoned with salt and pepper and a little sage and maybe a few secret spices that I don't know about and a sample fried until Pa was satisfied it tasted just right. Sometimes it was fried in patties and put down in lard like the tenderloin was. Sometimes it was put into casings. Casings could be bought at the butcher shop but, now and then, maybe because we had no money, we had to clean our own. The reason you starved the animal is because the intestines were used for casings. They were seperated from the other entrails and put into a pail of soapy water. They were washed several times, then brought in. Here the fun begins. And end is laid across a cutting board and it is scraped inch-by-inch with the dull side of a knife to get all of the fat off of the whole length, yards and yards. They they were washed some more. One end was tied shut and the whole thing was turned inside out over a piece of broom stick. When it had all been pushed onto the stick, the same procedure was done to clean the insides as it was slowly pulled off the stick. When done they were put to soak in salt water until the sausage was ready. The lard press was a small version of the cider press. It held about two gallons and there was a spigot at one side of the bottom. And extension about 8 to 10 inches long was screwed onto the spigot and the casing put on it, pushing as much of it as could be made to fit. The end hanging off was tied shut and as the plate was forced down by a set of gears and a crank, sausage was pushed into the casing, filling it and pulling more lengths off of the the extension. If you wanted you could give the sausage a twist every few inches or let it go for a couple feet and curl it into the bottom of a 5-gallon crock that was set in place below it, and covered by melted lard to keep it from spoiling, just as the tenderloin was. Whenever we would use the meat, we scraped the lard off, removed the amount we needed, then melted the lard and covered the meat again. This way we had some fresh meat and some cured so there would be a variety. We used the brains, heart, liver, tongue and when we butched a veal, we had sweet breads. These were called variety mets and we had to eat them right away because there was no good way to keep them. I remember having liver once covered with lard, but it must have been because we had too much and it would have spoiled. It wasn't the best that way, so what we usually did was give some to the neighbors. Then, when they butchered, we would usually receive some of theirs that they couldn't keep. Of course, you can see that our cuts of meat were different than in a butcher shop. Usually, beef was cut into cubes about one inch and packed into fruit jars and processed like vegetables. It was just beef, not steak or roast. The broth in the fruit jars made the most delactable gravy I have ever eaten. (c)1992 Lillian G. Merkle Hebert