Back to 1984: Hunting in the Mountains

Things like slaughtering pigs were strictly controlled in later generations.

As a result, pigs that have not undergone special inspection cannot be slaughtered or sold at will.

But it is still allowed in many remote rural areas.

At this time of year, every village has a few pig butchers, and it is a good business.

According to the rules in Qingquan Town, the price for slaughtering pigs is calculated by weight.

The labor fee is 1 cent per pound.

A pig that produces two to three hundred kilograms of meat costs twenty-three pieces, and during the Chinese New Year period, up to three or four pigs can be slaughtered a day, so the butcher families naturally have a lot of harvest.

Of course, in most cases, the villagers who ask butchers to kill pigs will not pay, but use pork instead.

Then the price of pork must be lower than the market price.

In this way, the butchers can earn some interest and receive more than 20 or 30 yuan.

Anyway, they sell meat on the streets all year round, so it doesn't matter whether they are paid for the meat or not.

The two brothers Yu Qiutang prepared two large buckets, several washbasins, and pulled a cart.

The butcher they were looking for was also a cousin of their clan.

And they have the same great-grandfather.

His name is Yu Tianshun.

A butcher all his life, he died on the way to sell pork in his previous life.

I heard that he was driving a three-wheeled motorcycle uphill, but the motorcycle broke down. He got out of the car to fix it, but the person died on the spot as soon as he got out of the car.

It is sudden death.

It can be said that one spends his entire life slaughtering pigs and selling meat.

Pulling the cart over here, Yu Tianshun and his wife were already boiling water. Seeing them coming, they greeted them with a smile.

"Why are you two here so early? The pig hasn't been delivered yet."

"Then wait."

Yu Qiutang smiled.

I have paid a deposit for the two pigs I bought in the village, and we agreed to send them here for slaughter today.

The method of slaughtering pigs here is very old and traditional, but very clean.

Here you need to stab the pig to death, drain the blood, then hang the pig up and put it in a pot of boiling water to scald its hair.

The pig-slaughtering pot is a special pot with a diameter of more than two meters. No matter how big the pig is, the whole thing can be put in it.

Boiling hot water can completely clean the pig hair, leaving basically no pig hair at all.

Yu Qiutang lived in the south in his previous life and was always annoyed by the way some pigs were slaughtered.

When the pork was served, there was still a layer of pig hair several millimeters long on the skin, which made people feel uncomfortable just by looking at it, let alone eating it.

It is said that the hair was burned with fire, but he is not sure about the details.

Anyway, I think this method of scalding with water is clean and hygienic.

After waiting for a while, I heard a creaking sound coming from the path. It turned out that the family selling pigs had arrived.

It was a big fat boar weighing more than 300 pounds. When it walked, the flesh on its body trembled constantly, making it look like a pregnant sow.

Unless people here keep old sows for breeding, they usually castrate the pigs when they are very young, regardless of whether they are male or female. This can reduce the incidence of diseases in pigs and make them fatter.

The old sows that are kept specifically as breeding pigs will grow very large, possibly weighing five or six hundred kilograms.

When old sows are raised to a certain age, especially before and after pregnancy, they become very ferocious and it is difficult for anything to get close to them except their owners.

If a chicken accidentally runs in and grabs the pig food, it will become the pig food.

There is also a legend nearby that a child ran into a pigpen to play and got half of his face bitten off by a pig without paying attention.

It is also quite tragic.

So people say that old sows should be killed quickly after giving birth to a few litters, otherwise they will become spirits.

Yu Qiutang was very satisfied with the pig. After confirming that there was no problem, he paid the remaining money to the seller.

Then Yu Tianshun called out his brothers and a son and started to tie the pig up and weigh it.

This process is not easy either.

Everyone in the butcher's family is fat and strong, so they are naturally very strong.

But the pig was obviously unwilling to submit to its fate today and was struggling violently.

The two butchers were unable to hold the pig down and were dragged around by the pig.

Later, with the help of Yu Qiutang and Yu Qiujiang, they were able to subdue the guy and tie up his limbs.

Use a hemp rope as thick as a baby's arm and a fixed pulley to hook the pig into the air, and then pull out two lines to make a triangle to fix it.

Yu Tianshun then took out a more than one-foot-long pig-killing knife from the knife sharpening basin on the side, walked in front of the pig, and thrust the knife into the pig's neck without any hesitation.

Yu Qiutang took a breath of cold air.

This kind of strength is not something that ordinary people can possess.

Practice makes perfect, of course, but being able to drive the knife in so deep requires a lot of strength.

"Ow!!!"

The pig was in pain and let out shrill screams, which almost deafened Yu Qiutang in an instant, but Yu Tianshun felt nothing. While the pig was struggling and screaming, he instructed his brother and son to connect the basin and bucket prepared by Yu Qiutang to the bottom of the pig.

The boiling pig blood gurgled into the basin and bucket.

Pig blood is very important and is a must-eat food for people here during the Chinese New Year.

This food is called "blood sausage".

Unlike many places in the south where people like to stuff meat sausages, people in Rongcheng prefer to eat blood sausages.

The method is actually similar to that of meat sausage, which is to wash the pig intestines, then add various seasonings to the pig blood, stuff it up, tie the opening, and steam it.

When eating, you can bite it directly, or cut it into thin slices and eat it cold.

It can also be fried with oil and chopped green onions, which is a very good food.

The pig was quite big and had a lot of blood, enough to fill more than a basin.

Can do a lot of enemas.

Not only can you eat the sausage yourself, but you can also give it to your relatives when you visit them during the Chinese New Year.

While this pig was being bled, another pig was also sent over by its "parent". Yu Tianshun hurriedly asked his son to stop the man and let him take the pig with him and wait.

If a pig came over now and saw the situation here, it would be scared to death on the spot.

If these pigs weighing several hundred pounds get angry, ordinary people can't stop them at all.

However, perhaps because the pig did not defecate properly over there, or for some other reason, the pig suddenly ran towards this side for some reason.

It was running towards us on the wheat field. From a distance it looked like a black calf, but it was much more powerful than a calf.

"Stand still!"

The pig's owner became furious when he saw this and started chasing the pig with a stick.

But since Zhui had already run away, why would he listen to him and rush over here in one breath.

However, it suddenly stopped, staring at the pig-slaughtering scene like a stone sculpture, and after a few seconds, it suddenly turned around and ran back the way it came. This made the people behind it very happy.

He thought his pig had come back and hurried forward.

however.

They obviously think too much.

The pig was crazy to begin with, and when it smelled the blood of its companion, it was probably so scared that it no longer cared about its owner.

Subconsciously, the pig wanted to avoid its owner and run away, but was stopped by the ignorant owner. Suddenly, the pig became furious and hit its owner head-on, knocking him to the ground in the wheat field in an instant.

Fortunately, the owner saw that the situation was not good and subconsciously dodged, so the pig only scratched half of its body.

Otherwise, if there is a head-on collision, you will be sent away on the spot.

He ignored the pain, turned over and chased the pig, but he didn't wait until the pig stopped by itself, as it was undoubtedly a pipe dream to catch up with it.

Over here, several people were also stunned.

Yu Qiutang wanted to help at first, but then he thought it would be better not to attract attention.

Some things are troublesome once they are involved.
"Boss, the water has boiled. I think the blood has almost been drained out. Shall we remove the hair?"

Yu Tianshun’s wife is worthy of being a butcher’s wife. She is strong and sturdy, with dark and red skin, and her fists are as big as a baby’s head.

Yu Tianshun looked down at the wound and nodded, "It's almost done, we can remove the hair now, come on, help me."

Yu Tianshun called everyone, slowly pulled the pig to the top of the pot, and slowly put it into the pot.

The pig was really big, and most of the space in the pot was taken up by it.

Yu Tianshun's wife stuffed a few more large logs into the stove below and began to pour boiling water on the pig with a long-handled spoon.

This process is called scalding.

A few minutes later, the couple began to brush the pig's hair together.

The brushes used to brush pig hair are made of steel wire. Each brush will brush out a clump of hair, which looks both healing and exaggerated.

Yu Qiutang’s way of dealing with wild boars and bears in the mountains is actually simpler than this.

Those things will be removed together with the skin and the meat inside will be taken out, but when the pig is killed, the skin will be kept together with the pig.

Pig skin has many uses, for example, the pig skin jelly that people here often make.

Just peel off the pig skin, put it in a pot, add various seasonings, peanuts, etc. and cook it. After it is thoroughly cooked, filter out the remaining things and cool the remaining jelly to get tender, chewy and delicious jelly.

Meat jelly can be eaten cold, dipped in garlic juice, or steamed. It tastes very good and is a famous snack in Rongcheng.

After all the pig hair is cleaned up, we can start slaughtering the pig.

Yu Tianshun also introduced to Yu Qiutang some tips on slaughtering pigs, such as what the various organs inside were. Yu Qiutang did not point it out, but smiled secretly in his heart, as he knew where these things were with his eyes closed.

There is no difference between wild boar and domestic pig organs.

As for the internal organs, they are not like those of wild boars that are killed and fed to dogs. Domestic pigs are clean and have very few parasites in them, so they can basically be washed and eaten by humans.

The offal was put into barrels and the meat was lifted onto carts.

At this time, the pig that ran away in front was finally pulled back by several people. The pig howled wildly all the way, obviously unable to accept the fate of being slaughtered.

The closer it was pulled, the more violently the pig struggled. It took half a day to move it one or two meters, as if it was a tug-of-war, and a seesaw battle began.

Yu Qiutang thought about it and decided not to show off. He and Yu Qiujiang first took the person they had killed back, and then came back to take the second one.

He is very strong, and only Yu Qiujiang and Wang Haofeng know that.

If outsiders knew about this, who knows what kind of trouble would come out.

But what they didn't expect was that when they came back again, they found that the pig had run away again.

This left him speechless.

Yu Tianshun and his family stood under the tree at the door, looking at the wild boars running around all over the ground, and smiled bitterly with helplessness.

To be frank, if a pig has a bad temper, its limbs should be tied up and it should be pulled over on a cart instead of being led over like cattle or sheep.

This time the pig was frightened twice and had a stress reaction. It would be difficult to deal with it in a short time. If it is not slaughtered today, the pig may die of illness.

It's too late to back down.

"Brother Jiang, let's go and help."

Seeing that there was really no other way, Yu Qiutang had to call Yu Qiujiang to help.

The pig's owner initially saw that Yu Qiutang had skinny arms and legs and thought he couldn't be of much help, so he just said something polite.

Unexpectedly, the pig that the three of them couldn't hold was easily dragged to the slaughtering pot by the brothers Yu Qiutang and Yu Qiujiang.

The pig was screaming wildly at first, but when it saw that there was no hope of survival, it lowered its voice and just let out heavy breaths.

It's like accepting fate.

Because this pig took a long time to deal with, it was already afternoon by the time it was dealt with.

Yu Qiutang and Yu Qiujiang pulled the pig back. Before they reached the gate of the yard, they could smell the aroma of meat. Four dogs, one big and three small, ran out like crazy, ran back madly, and then ran out again to greet them.

Seeing that they couldn't stop drooling, Yu Qiutang had no choice but to take some offal from the bucket and throw it to them so that they could have a good New Year.

After returning home, the pork was placed in a side room on the east side, where there was a rack.

The meat was cut into eight large pieces by Yu Tianshun.

After they were killed, they were weighed. The front one was the most important, with a little over two hundred pounds of meat. The back one looked fierce, but actually only had over one hundred and eighty pounds of meat.

Moreover, the one in the front is fat and strong, with four fingers of fat. The other one probably likes to exercise regularly, so it has more lean meat and less than three fingers of fat.

People's demands for pork vary in different eras.

People in later generations like to eat lean meat because they are tired of eating meat. Meat with too much fat is a cheap part.

In this era, people generally don't like meat, and when they eat pork, they pay attention to the fat. Pork with fat like this has the best price. If it is sold on the market, it can be sold for more than one yuan during the Chinese New Year.

No one had ever seen so much pork before, it was a great surprise.

Yu Qiutang recalled that during the Chinese New Year in previous years, his father would only buy two or three pounds of meat, leaving enough for making dumplings, and the rest would not be enough to stir-fry into a few meat dishes, and would have to be left over to entertain guests.

Now, our regret has finally been made up, and at least we can eat meat to our heart's content.

There is already half a pot of bones cooked in the pot in the kitchen, enough for everyone to have a good meal.

On the chopping board was a large piece of lard that had just been cut, estimated to be about 20 to 30 kilograms, enough to make a jar of beautiful lard.

Although other things are cheap these days, oil is very expensive, so many poor families cannot afford oil. The worst off families will put a rag in the oil bowl, called an "oil rag".

Before cooking each time, wipe the pan with an oily rag, just to raise the temperature of the pan and allow a little bit of oil to appear in the dish.

With such a big jar of lard, it can probably last for nearly half a year.

This is because Yu Qiutang deliberately did not cut the fattened meat that was going to be sent out, otherwise there would be more.

He kept one whole, four small pieces of pork for the big group to eat, and another whole, divided into pieces of varying weights.

There are gifts for my father, my third uncle, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law, my uncle's family, and good friends like Wang Haofeng.

If my second sister's home wasn't far away, I would have sent it there as well.

It's not that he is poor and generous, but it's the custom.

If you don’t want to kill pigs, then don’t kill them. If you do, you will give some away more or less.

For example, in my previous life, my second sister-in-law Miaqin would send some meat almost every year. (End of this chapter)