(Warning - Not for Faint of Heart) Hungary: Slaughtering & Public Executions
A slice of life in Hungary: Pig slaughtering
Centuries-old tradition not for faint of heart
By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff, 1/2/2000
Jfeherto, Hungary - Like most public executions, it happened at dawn.
The sun was just rising in this small Hungarian village as Jozsef Aranyos
and his friends downed shots of palinka, a clear, locally brewed brandy
that scorches the throat and prepares the men for the task ahead of them.
The pig, caged and waiting, squealed nervously, seeming to sense its fate:
to become a Hungarian family's dinner for a few months.
Aranyos trudged to an outdoor wooden table, examining nine knives and an
ax assembled for the ritual. His rubber boots were splattered with blood.
"I've done 1,000 pigs in these boots," he said proudly.
The pig tried to resist, and ultimately it took five strong men to hold
the squirming animal down. Aranyos stuck one of the knives in the pig's
throat, slicing with a practiced hand while a neighbor collected the blood,
thick as house paint, in a bucket. The blood would later be used for sausage.
Such is life in rural Hungary, where the life expectancy of a pig
is measured in pounds - somewhere between 300 and 450.
It is not an experience for the animal rights activist, the merely
squeamish, or those who might prefer not to think too deeply about
where pork chops come from.
The "disznovagas," or annual pig-killing, is a centuries-old tradition
in Hungary, a ritual that has survived many changes in politics, borders,
and economics.
The event involves the whole extended family, and takes place around
Christmas and New Year's, when the bitter cold eases the meat processing.
Hungarians love pork. They continue to eat the pig and its products heartily,
despite high levels of heart disease. It is not just the lean pork roast
Hungarians like; they eat everything except the hooves.
Pork fat is used in cooking, and many Hungarians keep, literally,
a tub of lard in their pantries.
The lard is spread thickly on bread, a snack that the Hungarians call
"zsiros kenyeret,"
and that they insist is the proper accompaniment to Hungary's
other famous culinary offering,
"egri bikaver,"
or bull's blood, a fortified, heavy red wine.
Aranyos, a local butcher brought in to help the Anducska family
with its disznovagas, was not just there for his expertise.
Many Hungarian families get attached to their pigs, and the owners find
they don't have the stomach - or the heart - to do the deed themselves.
"I stay inside and turn the radio up high, because I don't like the sound"
of the pig being slaughtered, said Lajos Anducska, a construction worker
and architect.
He looked disconsolate as Aranyos completed the job of dispatching the pig.
Pigs typically aren't named, so the owners can affect some detachment
when it's time for disznovagas. But they develop a bond with the pigs,
considered to be among the most intelligent of farm animals.
Erzsebet Gajdocsi, who lives in the southern Hungarian town of Pecs,
had a hard time talking about one family favorite, a pig so well-liked
that it had been spared the usual fate of being served up for dinner.
But eventually, she said, the pig just got too fat to live; at 550 pounds,
it couldn't hold up its own massive belly with its short, chubby legs.
Gajdocsi said her sister cried when this pig was slaughtered,
and later chose a piglet as a pet, even carrying it with her
to the market in a small basket.
Anducska wasn't about to cart a pig around with him, but he still
couldn't put the knife in. "Neighbors always help each other with
this," Anducska said. "It's too hard to kill your own pig."
On a bitterly cold day in Ujfeherto,
near the Ukrainian and Transylvanian borders,
Aranyos had been summoned for a two-pig job.
Once he slaughtered the first one (the second, by kind happenstance,
was facing away from the episode), the local men set about turning the
animal into food.
First, the skin was scorched and scraped off, then the carcass
was split lengthwise down the middle - carefully.
The intestines must be protected, as they are rinsed out and used
as sausage casing - a distasteful task done by women.
"The women, we always have to do the most disgusting jobs," Gajdocsi said.
The men took a break for hot mulled wine, then turned their attention
to the second pig, which was now agitated and squealing loudly.
The animal had caught on, sniffing at the blood of the first pig.
Futilely, the second animal backed up in its cage.....
Then came more wine, and then Aranyos got to the main work of the day:
turning the pigs into bacon, pork roast, and sausage material.
The steam rose from the meat in the sub-freezing weather.
Inside the garage, Aranyos, Anducska, and several neighbors shared
more palinka, as well as more hot spiced wine, and took the first taste
of their work: meat from the stewed head. Another neighbor worked at
cleaning the pig's stomach with coarse salt. The stomach would later
be stuffed with sausage meat, hung up to dry and to be smoked.
The end of the day brought
"disznotor,"
the traditional first supper featuring the pig meat.
The meal is meant to honor the pig,
as well as to celebrate the successful efforts of the day.
It had been long and messy work,
and the memory of the two pigs alive just hours before faded quickly.
"It's two pigs, yes," Aranyos said. "But it's also 440 pounds of food."
This story ran on page A21 of the Boston Globe on 1/2/2000.
Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company. |
