Hi all,

I asked the students in my Historical Archaeology class to conduct an oral
history interview with someone they knew, then relate the results to
archaeology.  One of the students interviewed his father about hog
butchering.  As someone else noted, they scalded the hogs first to make
removing the skin easier.  They dug a long, shallow pit, perhaps two feet by
6 feet and up to two feet deep.  In this the person built a pretty intense
fire.  They heated limestone rocks (around here in northern Kentucky that's
about all we have, elsewhere probably the local rock) in the fire.  They
dropped the rocks into big kettles to heat the water.  The hogs were dipped
into these kettles from above.  After that, proceed to the actual butchering
process.

Archaeologically this would leave long shallow pits and piles of rocks.
Sometimes they re-used the pits and sometimes they just dug new ones.  These
would be found near the barns and outbuildings.

Jeannine Kreinbrink


----- Original Message -----
From: "Margaret Green" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2002 10:08 PM
Subject: Re: Meat "parts"


>   My mother, who was born in 1903, grew up on a very rural farm in
> southern Frederick Co., Md. (There is now a highway next to the
> farm) She took the horse and buggy to a one room school. She took
> the very early morning milk train to Frederick to high school.
>   They raised pigs for their meat. She described the process of
> fall butchering. This was their winter meat! They had to have
> enough to last. The neighbors took turns helping each other and
> they did use everything but the oink. They salted and smoked hams,
> bacon, chops, etc. Made sausage and stuffed the cleaned intestine
> and bladder. When they ran out of casing, they used glass jars and
> canned the sausage.
>   They raised their own vegetables and canned them. Fruit was from
> their own trees and they picked, jammed, and jellied whatever
> berries they had, huckleberries, raspberries, blackberries.
> Oranges were hard to get, expensive and only in season. Oranges
> and nuts were put in the children's Christmas stockings because
> they were rarities.
>   My father grew up in the city, where food could be bought but he
> still has a fondness for some of the pork "parts", some of which
> might be Pa. Dutch variety - souse, head cheese, pickled pig's
> feet, scrapple, sausage.
>   BTW Beef tongue is tender and delicious, all meat, no waste. I
> used to be able to get it at the supermarket but I have to find a
> good farmer's market now.
> Marge Green