Pig slaughter: 12 december

The wonderful people we met in Bărbăteşti invited us to show up on the pig slaughter! The slaughter was going to be held in the house of Bărbăteşti´s mayor.

We left very early in the morning, at 7 am. When we arrived one of the pigs was already killed! And there he was, laying with his tongue out of the month, looking like he was smiling! So big he was! They were already in the phase of burning the fur with the blowtorch.

Almost all of the people were there that we had already met before and I felt that everybody was very happy to see us! One does not really need to speak a language to understand when there is empathy!

They immediately offered us hot Țuică and, of course, we didn´t refuse it (I don´t remember of drinking alcohol at 8 am before!!)

In Portugal we also keep this tradition of pig slaughtering but the last time I attended one was more than 10 years ago, so I just had a distorted image!

I believe that the big difference of the process, comparing with the Portuguese one, is that here they do not profit the pig blood (we use it to do other kind of sausages)  and they eat the skin without cooking it before!

It was quite cold and standing there doing nothing was difficult to handle, so we went inside of the house. We ate cozonac, drank coffee and there we were, entertained and having fun, enjoying the Denises´s company and singing Christmas carols.

When we went to take a look outside, another murder was committed already!

The women were separating the meat and in some pots something was being prepared, but I dind´t pay too much attention to that. It was actually a surprise to me when at 12pm the table was already set! Mămăligă, cheese and meat from the first dead! It was certainly the best pork I remember to have had eaten before! And believe me, I ate it in a lot of different places, also in villages, all and all, for more than 10 years, I was a countryside girl…! Perhaps because it was so fresh or because they feed the pigs with different food… I don´t know, but it was really delicious. If one day I will think about becoming vegetarian, the memory of that pork will be enough to dissuade me!

The lunch was great! I can say that almost just Denise was speaking English but it wasn´t at all an obstacle to communicate and laugh with the others.

Unfortunately, shortly after lunch, we had to leave because we had Martha and Roshan´s birthday party and we still had to prepare some snacks to take and prepare disguises (it was a thematic party). We lost too more deaths.