Killing Pigs

So, a couple of the guys in the youth group escort me to the shore. Expecting a nice salt water breeze, i’m instead greeted w/ the smell of scorched hair, as I see a gas tank hooked up to a flame thrower that one guy is shooting at a pig as others scrape at it w/ a shovel to clean off all of the hair. Usually, w/ smaller pigs, they just dip the pig in boiling water and then scratch furiously w/ their fingers to get the hair off. A guess a bigger job, calls for a bigger torch.

After scorched, the guys slice a triangle around the pigs butt and then make a round insertion around it’s belly and pull out all of the innards. The reason they cut out the but is so that when they pull the guts out, everything comes, down to the lower intestines and pooper. that way, they don’t have to deal w/ making a mess inside the pig. they then put all of the guts in a basket (*foreshadowing*) and fill the carcass w/ water to dump out all of the blood.

When we had a load, we’d work together to move all of the pigs (these things were huge. if you hung them by a hook so their body extended, they were taller than me) into the bed of the truck and towed them to a big freezer downtown. When we get there and opened up the fridge, I was greeted by at least 20 pig carcasses laid out on the floor. we rubbed their insides w/ salt and added the newbies to the mix and headed back to the village.



Thinking the pig work was done, i was guided to the shore again, where I had my second acquaintance w/ the gut basket. the guys had already removed and cooked the heart and liver (the liver ain’t bad...but I didnt get to try the heart), leaving the stomach and intestines....

The guys laughed when I gave them the what the hell did you keep the intestines and stomach for look and they explained that some Tongans eat them raw....after they are cleaned, which was our duty.

So, I take a section of intestine, walk out into the water and squeeze—like i’m pushing from the bottom of a toothpaste tube—the semi-digested material (read: shit) out of the intestine. Next, I thread a small stick through the intestine and rubbed vigorously through the water to clean out any loose particles.

When we made it through the foot after foot of intestine, large and small, we moved onto the stomach....which when sliced open, smelled much worse than the intestines. disgusting.