11am
So here is the dead, bloodless pig. What next?
One of the guys ambles up with a butane bottle and a blow torch. Another with two very old rusty knives. I go to get mine and they tell me no, the blade can’t be sharp or it will cut through the skin.
The guy lights the blow torch and starts to scorch off the hair. This is frightful. The skin bubbles and bursts and the smell is astounding - hair, grease, sty-filth - all mixing together to create a vile stench that sticks in my throat. We get to work with the blunt knives, scraping off the greasy top layer out of which the hair appears to grow. Beneath is the skin we are all familiar with. The skin that becomes crackling.
Once the blowtorching and scraping session is finished we move on to the next level of cleaning. A hose is turned on and we are all handed pumice stones with which we scour the skin. It takes off any final hairs and leaves our departed friend smooth.
One of the guys is in charge of the ears and the hoofs. The ears are doused with water and fairy liquid and then wiped and brushed clean. Unsurprisingly, our porker had appalling auricular hygiene. The trotters however are actually gruesome. The big, black cloven hoof is yanked off to reveal a second softer, pinkish hoof beneath. The removed black outer casings look like weird shaped lids lying discarded in the mud.
The pig is now ready for butchering. We lift the carcass onto another table (the third – I am not sure why we keep changing tables) and carry it into the shed where it will be cut up; bones, flesh, fat and innards all being consigned to one use or another.
The first process is the removal of its trotters and I can't help but think of the Russian mafia. Bizarrely, this is followed by another of their trademark calling cards – the removal of the face. The legs are tucked under the body and the whole thing is pushed into an upright prone position a la sphinx. Jesús then cuts the creature's face away in one piece. Very, very full on.
We now set about cutting away its back fat. This is done by sending a knife down to its spine and then along the entire length of its backbone, finishing on either side of its tail. The pig, well known for having a lot of fat, does not dispel the notion. Including the skin, the fat is 3 inches deep. When removed, we have two pieces about four foot long and a foot wide.
Next, the legs and shoulders are loosened and pushed flat against the table. So far the butchery is going completely opposite to how I expected it. The animal's intestines are still inside and it is lying down on all fours. I pictured it hanging, the intestines being the first things to be removed. I also expected a boning knife to be used but no, Jesús comes forward with his tools – a mallet and a hatchet. He places the hatchet on the rib furthest down its back and with one deft blow with the mallet, chops right through it. He repeats this all up one side and then the other.
This now leaves the entire spine separate from the carcasse except for its tail. He takes up a knife and very carefully cuts between the anus and the tail. The spine comes away. It is taken away to be salted for boiled bones with cabbage at a later date. This is what will happen with all the bones.
Jesús carries on with the butchery. I am told that the matador, the killer, ie Jesús, is in charge of the slaughter, the butchery, the seasoning of the sobrasada and black pudding and the cooking of lunch and dinner. He is most veritably The Man.
The ribs are pulled open to uncover the liver and a hell of a lot more fat. The liver is detached and placed on the table where all the innards are to go. The entrails, internal organs and anything that has blood or has come into contact with blood, will all go into black pudding or either of the two meals that will be cooked that day – the Frito de Matanzas and the Arroz de Matanza. The Frito is a fry up with potatoes and the Arroz is a stew with rice.
Jesús now pinpoints the various pieces to be extracted, all invisible under a mass of still warm and wobbling fat. He makes a little nick in what looks to me like nothing but blubber and out pops a kidney. He does this again and out pops the other.
Eventually everything has been removed except for the bowels and intestines. The intestines are deftly whipped out into a bowl.
‘Where?’ I ask, picking it up.
‘To the women,’ he replies. With a smile.
I take them over whilst he cuts out the bowel. To me, this is bizarre beyond bizarre. Leaving it til last seems a risk not worth taking. But then, we already know my credentials.
I walk over to the three old women working under the very thin shade of a mangled, stretched out tarp. It is tied over them and gives less than mediocre shade. Fortunately, the men are under cover of the barn’s roof so they won’t be distracted by skin care worries.
The island’s humidity makes curing precarious, so almost all the animal will be turned into sobrasada and morcilla. Sobrasada, a smooth, spreading sausage flavoured with herbs, spices and copious pimenton which gives it its red colour and morcilla, blood sausage. Delicious delicious.
Squinting against the sun, the women are already washing extra intestines brought in from a butcher. They are all elbow deep. Behind them on a trivet over fire is a steaming, blackened cauldron for cooking the morcilla.
Macbeth, I think. I give them the bucket and retreat.
To be continued
Great stuff!
Nose to tail !