Go To a Hog Killing

I’m fixing to go to a hog killing.

It’s getting to be that time of year, when it gets cold–freezing cold, so that no bugs are about. That’s when you have a hog killing, and you have to start early in the morning because it takes all day, and it takes a passel
of folks to accomplish it.

Old-timers would watch the weather signs while we young folks corn-fed those shoats. Then when everything indicated an icy morning was coming and the porkers were plump the decision would be made.

Besides harvesting some meat to get through the winter, a hog killing was also a social event. Only relatives, neighbors and good friends were
invited to share in the work and the bounty.

It all got started just before daylight when a big roaring fire was burning around a gigantic black wash pot. The scalding water from that pot was used to clean the porkers until they were slick and pink and ready to be sectioned into hams, bacon, pork chops, sausage and ribs.

Off to the side a smaller wash pot would be bubbling away with a fresh stew spreading a delicious aroma throughout the working crowd. About midmorning everyone enjoyed a hot bowl from that pot to stave off the cold, hunger
and fatigue.

After that everyone got down to serious work and the hams, bacon and sausage were toted off and hung from the rafters in the smoke house where the smoke from small hickory wood fires wafted up and around to cure them.

Still another pot was cooking the fat and melting it down into lard for cooking, while some folks close to it worked making souse meat and pickling the pig feet.


We all ate good that frosty morning, had fresh pork chops for breakfast the next morning, and shared the cured ham, bacon and sausage for the rest of the winter.


My favorite was the sausage. On a cold morning we would all gather around absorbing the warmth from the wood stove in the kitchen and watch while my
momma sliced up some links and popped them into her big iron skillet. As they sizzled away the ends would burst open and my mouth would water in anticipations of one of them in a biscuit.

Never had one like it since.

Like many good things from the past, hog killings don’t happen anymore.

Still, I couldn’t help but remember about it while I was fixing my corn
flakes.