WIDE MEADOWS: PORK ROAST AND SNIPE (A CONTINUING SERIES BY JEAN BELL MOSLEY)

Editor's note: This is an installment from a chapter of Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960.

The one remaining major undertaking before Christmas is butchering. In the spring the hogs were turned loose in the hills, their ears marked with varying notches for later identification, and cautioned to "Root, hog or die." In the late summer or early fall, they were rounded up, penned and fattened with corn and other supplements.

When the weather is just right, warm enough so that the meat will take salt, yet cold enough to prevent spoilage, we proceed with the butchering. But not before suitable rituals and small flourishes that make all tasks lighter and give a fine sense of having done a job well.

This calls for a cleanup of the smokehouse, resurrection of the hairscrapers, making of the gambrel sticks and the sharpening of the knives, both large and small.

It is deemed too dangerous to render the lard in the house, so Grandma scrubs the big iron kettle, settles it on the stand under the backyard cherry tree, and sees that a supply of slow-burning wood is near at hand. The sausage grinder is washed and scalded and screwed securely to the side of a board which is fastened onto wooden horses of sufficient height so that a washtub can be fitted in under the grinder to retrieve the meat. Thus, a person can work astraddle the board, or stand up and grind as he chooses.

Our smokehouse was of large, hand-hewn logs, neatly notched and fitted at the corners and chinked with a mud and hair plaster. It was originally roofed with hard-riven shingles, but storms and weather having taken their toll, we later put a tar-paper covering over the shingles. Old Man Adams, the valley historian, said the smokehouse was much older than our house and, indeed, it was large enough for the common one-room log cabin of earlier days, but there was no fireplace so we discounted the theory that it was once used as a home.

There were no windows, but in places the chinking had fallen out and left little peepholes of light. A great, split sycamore log, turned rounded side up, served as the step before the heavy plank door. At the far end, away from the door, a wide shelf was built crosswise from wall to wall. Here we laid the big hams and shoulders, middlings and jowls, while they took salt. Later on they were suspended from crossbeams while the smoking process went on.

Most major undertakings of this sort were begun on Monday, so on Sunday afternoon we lay more groundwork for the eventful day. On the hillside sloping down to the creek, not far from the hogpen, was a large maple with a suitable crotch of proper height to support one end of the heavy log that is erected, from which to hang the hogs. The other end is held up by a thick railroad tie, properly notched. A big wooden barrel, lying on its side, is set at an angle to hold water, yet easily receive the hairy carcasses of the hogs. This is accomplished by digging an inclining depression in the ground and securing the barrel therein.

Lou and I bring up big rocks from the creek, and old, broken plowshares and other pieces of iron from the tool shop, and lay them alongside the firewood. On the morrow the fire will be built the first thing, even before breakfast or milking. The rocks and old pieces of iron will be put into the fire and later pulled out with a hoe and transferred, via a long-handled shovel, to the water in the barrel. The water must be scalding hot before the hair will scrape easily from the hogs.

The neighbor men help with the butchering just as they do at haying and threshing. Later Grandpa and Dad will go to their homes to help them. Fresh sausage, liver, backbones, and ribs are shared with each other at the successive "hog killin's."

On the day of the big event, Lou and I do our chores early and hurry off to school so as not to hear the goings-on at the pigpen. When we come back, late in the evening, the big, white, split carcasses will be suspended from the log and we will not be able to tell Old Flea-hide from Flop-ear.

After supper we will go the cold smokehouse and work by lantern light, turning the sausage grinder, while Dad and Grandpa trim the hams and shoulders and square up the middlings, and Mama and Grandma continue their task of stripping fat for lard.

But we don't mind the cold, for we are in conspiratorial cohoots against future hunger, and there is a comfortable camaraderie as we grind and slice and salt. Grandpa hands Grandma a sow's ear and says, "Here's your silken purse." She throws a pigtail at him.

Next: Pork roast and snipe: An introduction to the Kotiskis