REMEMBERING

Remembering the hog butchering: we’d wait to try to find the coldest day to butcher. We usually butchered seven or eight hogs. The hams and shoulders were salted over night then took to the cold storage the next day, there they stayed for 30 days. The sides were salted down in the smoke house and left stacked and covered with salt until the hams and shoulders were brought home about 30 days later. Then we’d heat a pot of boiling water and dip each piece for a few minutes and then lay on a table to dry. Then with a knife punch a hole in the hams and shoulders, then using “Bares Grass” string them on a pole, then put in the smoke house. Then smoke them with hickory wood until just the right brown. I used 4 cans of lard. The lard was cut from trimmings from the hams, shoulder and the hog intestines and cooked in the wash pot until all the lard was out, then put in a cloth and squeezed until all the grease was out. Also the sausage was ground the same day. The sausage were stuffed into the casings we made from the hog intestines, scrapped paper thin. We also made “chittlins” from the hog intestines. They were washed and scrubbed clean with salt and corn shucks. We thought they were good fryed brown, with grits, sirup and hot biscuits. Mama always helped us on hog butchering days and she would make a liver stew that was the best ever. She also could cook spare-ribs better than anyone I ever knew, they were tinder and brown. I believe she cooked them in the little iron pot, adding a few drops of water until they were tinder but brown. Arnold loved the liver and always couldn’t wait until his Dad butchered hogs to get fried liver. The liver stew was made with, heart, a few ribs and lung, liver and when done put a few spoons of cornmeal to thicken it. On butchering days we always had fryed liver, pork ribs, turnip greens and sweet potatoes baked with all the home ground cornbread you could eat. Everyone was so tired and dirty by night we almost went to sleep as soon as we ate supper. Wilbur said I could always cook any kind of meat better than mama but she had me beat cooking turnip greens.