killing a pig

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we were both interested to see it, i mean if you eat pig, which spanish people tend to do, then you should be able to take it right? the pig arrived in a trailer, and i was ready to hold bernat’s hand while they slit it’s throat, but then they stunned it in the trailer and bled it from the throat before taking it to the centre of the square. it wasn’t quite as humane as i imagined because after they shocked it between the eyes it was still kicking around while they dragged it out onto the bench.

i once saw hugh fearnly-whittingstal kill rabbits on british tv. it came with a warning, and in the same way as the pig i thought, hey well i’m a meat eater so i’d better be able to watch this. in fact when he cut the rabbits i didn’t find in traumatic at all, it was like, ah there’s a rabbit, and oh, now there’s some meat.

the pig was a bit more dramatic as it stayed pig like for a long time while they flayed the hair off, blowtorched the trotters off and cleaned it. there was too much drama leading up to the first proper cut, which was to the back of the neck. you don’t need to know more details really, spine, intestines, head, all taken and stored carefully in seperate baskets, and the last things left on the bench were the two legs of ham. it took about an hour, and half the time was spent getting the hair off. by the end both bernat and i felt a bit sick. and when i showed him the photo of the pig with its head hanging off, we felt that would be too much for the blog and maybe you’re glad it got deleted.

sunday was windy, which is my least favourite weather. we did some great jobs though – cutting trees to prepare for the digger, including a fat olive branch that took a combination of the big saw, the little saw, the axe/hammer combination and using an old sheet as a rope to finally pull it down. bring on the jcb…