Hog Butchering
When we were interested in buying the Zapalac Farm, we spent a number of weekends visiting with them, so that they could show us everything about the farm and how things worked. When they moved to town, they would not be able to bring everything with them, such as the chickens and the hog. They would leave the chickens for us, but the hog had to be butchered, and you could not butcher a hog in warm weather, because the meat would spoil. Fortunately it was late Fall, and it was cool enough. The Zapalacs invited us to participate in the hog butchering. They would call their friends to come and help with the butchering, because it was a big project, and neighbors helped one another, and shared the meat when the butchering was completed.
Here are the notes I made at the time:
Just less than three years ago I helped Joe and Mary Zapalac butcher their last hog before they sold their farm in Fayetteville to us. Today Mary Zapalac and her friends helped me butcher our first hog on that same farm in Fayetteville. I not only had the thrill of participating in a tradition developed by generations of Czech farmers but had the satisfaction of knowing they were passing on this tradition to me.
Dec. 4
I cleaned the smoke house of three years of cob webs and debris—many stored items: jars, bottles, curtain stretchers, garden equipment, even bars of home made soap. The boys hauled many boxes of trash to the barn for Peter Janish to dispose of at some future date. Catherine and I washed the stone jars after scraping out the three year old lard stored in them. After we washed the iron kettle all was ready for butchering tomorrow.
Dec. 5
I was up very early, milked the cow, ate breakfast with the children and sent them off to school. I built a fire under the iron kettle. Everything was ready except the weather. At 8 am Mr. Sula called. He said the forecast was for rain and the butchering was off. The next date was scheduled for next Monday, weather permitting. The rain began at 10:30.
Dec. 10
I was up very early: sent Clovis off the Washington DC, milked the cow, and started the fire. The air was cold (32 degrees) and crisp. Clouds but no sign
of rain, and best of all no wind. The children left for school at 8, and at 8:15 Mr. and Mrs. Sula arrived with their basins, knives and aprons in hand. We drank hot coffee in the kitchen and waited for the rest to arrive. At 9 am Father Ben called to offer a deer he had shot in Uvalde for sausage. He would provide the deer meat, we would provide the pork fat and make the sausage. We would split it 50/50.
At 9:15 Spike arrived and we went to the pig pen topick out the pig. Joe Kramr drove up to join us. It is very simple; a shot in the head, but if the pig moves the other three pigs get in the way—if you miss there is so much mud in the pen the other pigs might get out. But the shot
is aimed well. We drag our hog out through
the gate, quickly cut the heart and jugular viens so that the hog will bleed and the butchering began.
Mary Zapalac arrives and she and Mrs. Sula
take over the kitchen. Since I am learning the trade I stay outside with the men. By now the iron kettle of water is boiling and Joe Kramr pours boiling water over the hog supported on
two benches. Spike and Mr. Sula begin to scrape starting at the nose and going back on one side. The knives are very sharp and the hair falls away from the skin. Every hair must go. They scrape around the ears and the feet. First one side and then the other is scraped clean. Instead of a red hairy pig we have a white smooth hog.
Then we string it up with a block and tackle fastening a bar with two hooks into the tendons of the hind legs. Now the hog is suspended and looks tremendous. We scrape and wash again, clean the knives and before I realize it Mr. Sula has cut the chin from ear to ear. The jowl is hung on a nail on the smoke house wall (which always must have been there for this purpose).
Next the neck is circled with a very sharp knife—a twist or two and the head is off. This
is the major ingredient in head sausage and is handled very carefully. It is washed and sawed in half. The brains are carefully scooped out and put in a dish and put on the screen porch (to be cooked with scambled eggs)
Meanwhile the kettle is emptied of the wash
water, cleaned and refilled. The fire is kindled
again. The head sausage will be cooked in this
kettle. Lillian Kramr has just arrived and has
taken Virginia into the kitchen. This is a blessing for a mother carrying a 4 year old child is not a
very good butcher.
While Spike and Mr, Kramr are taking care of the head Mr. Sula is dismanteling the carcass. First a cut in the center of
the pelvis through skin and fat to the bone which is gently tapped with a cleave and hammer until it breaks apart. Next the bladder and all its parts are very carefully removed. The opening of the intestine is circled with a knife, cut free and tied securely. Then the intestine is pulled free from the body wall very carefully, for its contents would spoil the meat. Any hole in the intestine would make it difficult the stuff with head sausage. (a note: best not to feed pigs right before butchering. It is easier to clean the intestine for sausage casing) Now the rest of the underside is cut through so that the intestines fall forward into a basin until the stomach and the upper part of the digestive tract are free. This is also securely tied, and put aside for casing for head sausage.
Mr. Sula cracks the ribs on both sides of the back bone with a cleaver and hammer, finishes cutting through with a sharp knife and frees both sides of the hog, each hanging from one side of the spreader and holds the backbone in his hands. The two sides are unhooked and carried into
the smoke house where they are cut up.
Meanwhile the frosty morning has required a toddy (sugar browned in an iron pan, lemon juice, and scotch, the onlywhiskey I had, and water) A very effective warmer upper.. Also Frank the plumber just happened to stop by to look at the flu over the Franklin Stove and exchanges hunting stories with us while we work.
As the meat is being cut up in the smoke house great preparations are going on in the kitchen. Mrs. Sula peels potatoes, Lillian baked a pie and prepared turnips. Mary Zapalac cooks sausage and is stewing a chicken. There are pots boling on the wood stove and the electric stove. Everyone is chopping or stirring and
it smells like garlic all over. It is very warm inside.
Each side of the hog is cut up. First the the fat inside the ribs is removed and put aside for lard. Then the ribs are cut from the bacon and the feet are cut off. The feet are cut in half lengthwise to be cured in brine. The two hams are
boned and cut in three pieces. One tenderloin we keep to freeze, the other goes into sausage. All the fat is saved for venison sausage The rest of the meat is taken off the bones and cut up for sausage. All the bones go into the kettle with a handful of garlic. The hams and bacon are put in a 10 gallon crock, sprinkled with cut up garlic and salt. Garlic is enverywhere
Dinner time: Sausage, chicken, potatoes, turnips, corn, squash, saurkraut, homemade bread, butter, pickles, pickled beets, kolaches, pies, cookies, and coffee. We are restored.
Back to work: Lillian cleans up the kitchen and does the dishes. Mary Zapalac and Mrs Sula clean the intestines and cook the head sausage.
After lunch Spike and I take the cut up pork and fat to be ground at Mihalsky’s packing plant while Mrs. Sula and Mary Zapalac wash and
tie casings for the sausage/. We pick up Father Ben’s venison and in no time it is ground with our pork fat. (32 lbs) Our pork is ground, (50 lbs) Spike stops at his house to get the correct recipe of salt, pepper and garlic for this amount of meat. While he is figuring we haul the ground meat to the smoke house, clean out the sausage stuffer and prepare more casings. Spike mixes the sausage.
We stuff the pork sausage first: Mr. Kramr mans the stuffer, I slip the casings on and Mr. Sula ties them.
The venison is cold and we try various ways to warm it up: first in front of the gas heater, then on top of the wood stove. Twice we run out of casings, but a trip to the Kramrs and then to the grocery store replenishes our supply. Time out for a beer, a drink, an apple.
All the ngredients for the head sausage are removed from the kettle to cool so that the meat can be picked off the bones. This is a good snack too. Time the cook the rice and wash and tie
more casings. They are pulled through in a pot of warm water-easier to open the end this way.
At last all the sausage is stuffed. We thread it on poles and lift it up to the cross bars of the smole house. Coals from the fire underthe kettle start our fire fed with hickory logs and pecan branches. We will smoke it until night, let the fire die and smoke it again tomorrow.
The head sausage is ground (meat from the bones, rice and more garlic) mixed and stuffed intocasings-from the hog intestines and also commercial casings. These are boiled in the broth left in the kettle for 5 minutes, then scooped out and put on the screen porch to cool.
It is getting late and everyone is tired. The children have come home from school, watch a while and go off to do their jobs Spike leaves to feed his cattle. Mr. and Mrs.Sula have to go to a meeting tonight. They take some bread and sausage, some ribs and back bones with them.
I will send their share of the sausage when it is done. Mr. Krammr and I cut up the last of the fat for lard. Now the ham and bacon are taken out of the crock and spred on the porch table next to the head sausage. Tomorrow it will be soaked in brine and next week we will smoke it.
Mary Zapalac and I finish the last dishes. We will clean the sausage stuffer, the smoke house tables and the crocks tomorrow.
Smoke is puffing out of the smoke house, tubs of meat and sausage are all over the porch and everything has a delightful smell of peppery garlic. There are three more pigs to go. Some day we may be able to butcher by ourselves, but as long as our friends are able to help we are providing food for our table and comradery that is food for our spirit. It is a time to remember how people in a different era sustained themselves. It is a time to think of Joe Zapalac and Mary Kramr who died since we butchered the last hog, but are so close to us in spirit today.
These pictures were taken by Mr. Beckley the day we butcherd Mary and Joe Zapalac’s hog in 1972.
