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'Hawg Killin'
Time’
KONA MORRIS WORKMAN
ROCKING W RANCH
A
The other day when I was in
the butcher shop I saw a folom
looking half of a small ham lying
in the show case, under lock and
key with an armed guard standing
watchfully by.
Speaking in an
awed whisper, I asked the price.
As proudly as if he were the cus
todian of the crown jewels, the
guard answered that it was nine
ty-five cents a pound. I bowed
politely to the ham and bought
a hunk of hamburger, then I
went home and made my way out
to the domicile of the once-lowly
pig. “They who were humble
have been made great”—and how!
The pigs grunted sleepily at me,
unknowing the thoughts in my
mind as I looked at their fat
backs and considered their weight.
The Big Boss came out with a
bucket of feed and we stood in
silence, then he said, “They’ll be
ready next week.” I nodded in
agreement and their doom was
sealed. The gods of their destiny
had spoken.
Now I don’t know just how
much it cost to feed those pigs
so they could attain their present
satisfactory condition, because I
am afraid if I figure it all up,
the total will be so staggering
that we won’t enjoy eating their
hams and bacon, and I like to
enjoy my victuals. It is getting
so that every particle of food
you put into your mouth tastes
just like a dirty dollar bill. If
you raise the food, it costs too
much to eat, and if you buy it,
it still costs too much to eat, so
what the heck is a person going
to do ?
I remember when my father
used to butcher in the fall—and
that is one disadvantage of being
fifty-two, you have such pleasant
food-memories of the past in con
trast with1 the present. Always
enough hams and gacon and lard
in those days to carry them
through the year, and instead of
being one of the luxuries of life,
smoked meat was merely a com
mon, unvalued, food of daily eat
ing. Even the “poor-white trash”
in those times had ham and ba
con to waste, or to feed to the!r
dozen hungry dogs, but hog feed
in those days was hog feed and
npt gold dust, which changes the
status of things.
Then there is all the work
connected with butchering. “Hawg-
killin’ time" when you are a
child, and when you are one of
the working members of the
household, are two entirely dif
ferent things. It was all fun and
excitement when I was seven.
The big fire to heat the water
in the hog-scalding trough, the
bustle and talk and the grunts of
men heaving and straining to
turn the huge hogs in the water
so the hair would scrape off with
out leaving unsightly patches of
bristles, and the roasting cf the
pig tails in the hot ashes. (I tried
an ash-roasted pig tail after I
was grown. Something had hap
pened during the inte-vening
years. The thing didn’t taste
one bit good, and I was childishly
disappointed. It is always a loss
when a pleasant memory dies.)
I learned something about the
other side of butchering—the
working side—when I was run
ning this ranch alone. I decided
I vould keep one of the fat pigs
for home use. (I sold the others,
and, because I couldn’t judge pig
weight, I had let them get too
fat, so I got “docked” on the
price, yet at the time the radio
was shouting to save every ounce
of waste fats because there was
a fat shortage. There are so
many things about this economy
of ours that I fail to understand.
However, since this is a disserta
tion on pig and not a treatise on
government economy, I’ll refrain
from further remarks on the sub
ject.) Mr. Kirkbride came out,
killed my pig and skinned it
neatly—and I mean neatly—and
split it down the back for me. I
can’t remember now why I didn’t
have him cut it up for me. Maybe
he was too busy, or I wanted the
new experience; at any rate, I
tackled the job myself.
Roy, our old hired man, helped
me carry the carcass to a big ta
ble, then he left me alone with
the thing and departed swiftly to
the farthest comer of the ranch.
I looked at that huge mountain
of meat, weighing almost three
times as much as I did, and de
cided that the Big Boss was ab
solutely right when he contended
that I was always biting off more
than I could chew. That pig looked
bigger than an elephant to me,
and I knew just as much about
cutting up a pig as I did about
cutting up an elephant, but, since
there is nothing one can do with
a pig in that state except cut
him up, I got out the book on
butchering, picked up a knife and
went to work. With desperate
concentration I followed those
pictures and instructions just as
one follows instructions in knit
ting, and some five hours later
I had a dis-membered pig, an
aching back, four cut fingers,
grease from the top of my head
to the soles of my boots, and was
vowing by everything I held sa
cred that never again, so long
as I lived, would I ever touch a
piece of pig meat.
Oh, well, that was three years
ago, and one can forget a lot of
vows in three years, besides the
r
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THURSDAY, DEC. 12,'1948. &
-------
see you slavzring at the pictures
I am making; I even have my
self drooling. Ah, the odor of
frying bacon on a crisp cold morn
ing! How on earth am I going
to be able to wait until these pigs
become bacon? ‘Give me strength.”
On the basis of present figures
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Big Boss can cut up a whole pig
in the time it took me to get one
ham off and trimmed properly,
eo butchering now means for me
onlv the usual amount of wifely
interference plus the rendering of
the lard—beautiful,, beautiful lard
-—and helping with the curing,
which means galloping out to the
smoke-house and putting on more
vine-maple wood whenever the
smoke stops filtering through the
air-hole. Who wouldn't be willing
to do that for the where-with-all
of pies and cakes, of platters of
juicy brown ham with cream
gravy, of crisp crunchy bacon
with your toast and eggs in the
morning, of crusty roasted spare
ribs, sputtering and fragrant? I
know this is cruel of me; I can
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