Makin’ bacon

PLEASANT VALLEY ROAD - From hog jowls to hocks, young and old saw pork processing from the stick to the smoke house at the Old South Farm Museum and Ag Learning Center in Woodland, Ga.

The museum’s owner, who sponsors Farm Field Days for schools, says children today have things all mixed up.

“When the kids come in, and we ask where food comes from, I hate it when I hear them say, ‘From the grocery store,’ ” said Paul Bulloch, a former Georgia Extension agent and ag historian, speaking through a bullhorn to a crowd of several hundred seated and standing in an open area behind the museum.

“They have things mixed up,” Bulloch said. “Food comes from the farmer.”

More than 300 adults and children were on hand “out back” for the annual Saturday Old Fashioned Hog Killing School at the museum in Talbot County.

The classes and demonstrations throughout the day included sausage making, lard making, cooking pork skins, making Brunswick Stew, meat curing, lye soap, chitterlings cleaning and casing scraping, cracklings and smoking meats.

Bill Carter was on hand to handle the hog killin’ part of the day’s event.

As the crowed hushed, the sound of a rooster crowing, cock-a-doodle-do, filled the silence, signaled starting the hog killin’ demonstration. Next came the crack of a rifle and a shout from Carter, “We got a shooter now, so bring the hog down.

“Alright, I need a little help here to pull him out. I need some help here,” he said turning to the crowd.

Several men pulled the hog down a grassy hill to a pallet next to what Carter described as his “operating table.”

“Take your knife, cut here and keep on cutting - it will stop.” said 77-year-old Bill Carter, as he stopped to sharpen his knife throughout his cutting demonstration. “You treat that knife right, it will cut, bone and all.”

“We are fixing to catch a little blood. We are going to make a little blood pudding,” he said. “Alright, take it like that. Do it like that. One stick.

“OK, blood pan. There’s some good blood there.”

The veteran of 55 years of slaughtering hogs said there were a lot of different cuts of meat you could get from one hog as he showed the crowd where things, like pork tenderloin and rack of pork chops, came from as he dressed out the carcass.

“I can’t count how many different things you can get off of this one hog,” said Carter, who said he had been handling hogs for about 55 years. “I don’t know how many prices this one hog has got on it.

You can start off at about $1.49 for the neckbone and when you get to the back end its about $4.99.”

A quick check at a local grocery store by this reporter found pig’s ears at $1.09 a pound and pork tenderloin at $8.74 a pound.

“They have fed him pure corn,” Carter said, seeing the hog for the first time. “He hasn’t had no potato chips or nothing like that. They fed him pure corn.”

Heated by a roaring wood fire, the steaming water/ lime mixture scooped in a bucket from a large black pot goes into a 55-gallon drum sitting at an angle on the ground next to the hog.

A question comes from the crowd, “How hot do you have the water before you put it in?”

“160 to165” is Carter’s reply.

Again from the crowd, “Don’t the water drop down before you get the back end in it?”

“All depends on how fast you are on the front end,” is his reply. “A lot use a temperature gauge.

“I did so many, I just put these three fingers in there.”

After his three-finger test, Carter adds cooler water. “Water is easy to cool down, but hard to heat up. It takes time.”

When asked about the lime mixture, he points up at a nearby pine tree and says, “You can put pine tops in. You don’t need no lime.”

“Hair off the hog,” he yells, asking those around him to start the scraping and gets several youngsters to help. The hot lime/water mixture helps ease the scraping process in cleaning off the hair covering the hog.

“They call this a single tree,” he said pointing to the metal bar hanging from a nearby pine tree. “We used to call it a hog tree because we used to have to go out and cut a limb off a tree and use it. They got a little smart now. They can make these at a factory now.”

Dipping a bucket into the steaming water/lime mixture, he says, “I’m going to give him one more shower, then we are going to put him on the table.

Switching hands as he sharpens his knives, he said, “I’m left handed and I’m right handed,” and continues to sharpen he knives.

Selecting one of his knives, he says, “Let’s get him hanging up, scrape him a time or two and get the chittlins out of there.

“You take your knife just like that and just cut down in there. I’m going to turn him around here. I’m going to take this knife go just like that, just like that, bone and all.

“When you get here,” he shows the crowd, “just keep on cutting - chittlins, guts and all.

He stops and looks up the hill, “Hey Linda, your chittlins are ready. Send up here to get them.”

He cuts and says, “Bring it on out all at one time. All at one time. We are going to separate everything on the operating table here.”

He holds the hog’s heart up for the crowd to see.

“Some people say, ‘When you stick a hog, you cut his heart.’ This heart doesn’t have a knife in it nowhere. So if somebody will tell you, you have to stick a hog’s heart to get the bleed, you tell them they are telling something ain’t right.

“This is the kidney here,” he said, holding one in his hand.

“Does anybody here need a transplant today. This would be a good time to get it.

“Does everybody here know how to cook this kidney?,” he asks. “How many of y’all don’t know how to cook this kidney?” Most of the crowd raises their hand.

“Alright, for y’all that don’t know how to cook a kidney - I hate to say this - you boil the piss out of it.

“Y’all asked for it,” he said, as the crowd continued to laugh.

He asked how many knew how to eat liver loaf or make hash out of this.

“You mix this and this together, chop it up, put it in a pot, boil it and put onions in there - best eating in town.”

He asked how many of ya’ll eat hog maw.

“I don’t even know what hog maw is,” a young girl in the crowd said.

Talking as he was cutting, he said, “I know all these peoples out here. I know y’all don’t eats bologna, white bread, mayonnaise and cheese. I know somebody eats some hog.

“We are getting down to the good part now - these are the chittlins.

“These here are the small chittlins. You know the link sausages you buy in the store. That’s what they put the sausage in. You get them, clean them and scape them. Then you put them on the sausage stuffer and stuff the sausage in there.

“These are the chittlins here,” he said holding him up. “You get them clean and cook them up. They are mighty good.”

Carter was one of several doing demonstrations throughout the day at the museum.

The museum manager said he was a county agent and raised up around animals.

“When I retired I started the museum,” he said. “People enjoy things like the soap making, crackling skins and other things.

“It is a thing we all had - your daddy, my daddy. They talk about this and they want to do it.

“Back then, this was a neighborhood thing. One neighbor would help the next neighbor. We don’t have that any more. You don’t even know who lives next door to you now.

“Back then, the neighbors would come in on a Saturday, and they help you and do it. Then they would go help him. I think this is a thing of the past.

“It makes me feel good when somebody says, ‘This is the best thing I have been to.’ ”

To find out more about the educational activities at the Old South Farm Museum visit the Web site at http://www.oldsouthfarm.com, or call 706-674-2894.