Nine days to go
1 03 2008
Our next two Berkshire pigs are due to go slaughter in nine days time, which is a fortnight later than we’d have liked as they’ve taken longer to finish than our last few pigs. I had to change and cut their feed intake six weeks ago because they had started to lay down too much fat. It appears to have worked as the depth of fat over their backbone stabilised and then shrank slightly, so I can again just feel their spine. At the same time, both pigs are larger. As for the Big Lad’s “toy”, the best-behaved Beaver in his Beaver Pack gets to bring Beaver home for a week, so the Big Lad has been showing him around the croft and having photos taken to show his friends.
To many people’s surprise, the boys have absolutely no problems with being friendly with the pigs and then eating them. The boys know the pigs are bred to eat, they enjoy feeding them, talking to them and giving them a rub, they come to the abattoir with me, and they love eating the pork. The only difficulty is that both boys consider the pigs to be “theirs”.
I couldn’t do it myself. And I know my grandmother and mother hated it as well. My grandmother and I were the type to bring animals home, and nurse them. I take it the boys aren’t the type to want to bring every animal home, as a pet.
So where do I get a slice of that bacon? Please don’t tell me it’ll end up in Tesco.
Perhaps if you had a friendly dog the boys would get to see both sides of the coin as far as animals go Stoney.
But an understanding of where our food/meat comes from is all a part of our education in life. This has been going on for thousands of years and will continue to do so.
Our little girls are matter of fact about food animals too. They love to play with them and they all have names but if you are honest and practical about where meat comes from, they don’t seem to mind.
No I don’t think the meat will end up in Tesco. Though I am sure it will end up in his freezer, or drying house. If he has one. I don’t know how pigs are cured in Scotland. My grandfather did with salt. And I don’t think the Berkshires aren’t bacon pigs.
Two half pigs for our consumption, two half pigs for two friends. We don’t supply retailers or “consumers”.
Berkshires are a pork pig, but they still make good bacon and ham. Tamworths, on the other hand, make superb bacon.
We cure our own bacon in home-made brine, but it’s a winter job as we don’t have enough refrigerator space. We put the bacon cuts in food-grade plastic tubs, cover them with brine, weight them down, and place the tubs in cold outbuildings. Provided the temperature is below 5C and above freezing, it works well. And is very traditional!