Making of ... meat products

Ok, I know the slaughter part was brutal, but I had to post it in order you know the whole story...
This part is much nicer. It is about preparing all that yummy meat products. Basically, you need the meat, lot of garlic, paprika and different seasonings. Plus you need cleaned intestines to make sausages and headcheese.

And you need some machines like a meat grinder and a sausage machine of course...


I told you, lot of paprika...


You have to make a knot at one side of the intestine so the filling stays in.


You can wrap the meat with some fat parts to give it better taste while roasting.


This is how you fill the intestine with the mixture.


You put the sausages in hot water (not a boiling one) for like 7 minutes and they are ready for a future preparation.



It begins with cooking not so atractive parts of pig´s meat, and ends with a headcheese.


And here are the happy boys cheering to a good work:

The Slaughter

So here is that bloody process. As I mentioned last time, this post is about pig slaughter in order to prepare the meat for you to eat.
The process starts with one fast shot. You wait till the animal is bled out.
Next thing to do is to crozzle (burn) the whole body of the pig, to get rid of its bristles. The pis is all black after the process. (click on pictures to enlarge)

After that comes cleaning. You take brush and water and clean the skin very carefuly, so all the burn is removed. Our boys did the cleaning, the butcher prepared his knives meanwhile.

Then you put the animal on some kind of lattice-work or something that the pig is not on the ground. And here comes the main part for the butcher - cutting the animal into meat parts. It is a presise knife -work and if the meat is not hanging down as in a regular abatoir, the help of more people is required. Soon there is two exact parts of a huge piece of meat, the pig intestines are removed. With the help of a hose and water, you get rid of the remaining blood.

In a few minutes, the butcher lays down on the table all the meat parts. Some are put aside to become smoked ham or cutlets or ribs later, and some are going to be processed right away.

To see some of the next process, please come back for the next post.

Day on the farm

Last Saturday I spent with my friends at a small charming (little messy, but hey, that can be charming too) farm close to the hungarian border. We went there for a not so charming reason. To be a part of the slaughter of the pig. Don´t get me wrong. I am an animal lover but also a meat eater. Am not naive that the meat I eat wasn´t alive once.

But these pigs are breed in a quite nice environment, definitely have a nicer life then those breed in a huge companies, probably closed in the halls without a natural light. Those are country pigs living a country life. But anyway, they are meant to become a human food.

It is still quite common part of a country life here to breed pigs and then, in the winter, organize a slaughter. If you are a city folk, you can pay some breeder to organize it for you. At that time, part of the property, a lawn, a yard, whatever is there, becomes an abattoir. You can hire a butcher who does the worst part, killing and cutting of the animal. And you can be part of the rest, prepare your own different kinds of sausages, headcheese, and other products I can not really find an english word for. This way you know what you are putting in and that there are no preservatives, no Es, nothing bad. You make your own food.

To be part of the abattoir is a social event. Friends gather and work together. Because it is done outside in the cold winter, it involves some drinkink too. Most of the time people are having a great time together and lot of fun. It can be the highlight of your winter.

I went because I wanted to document the process how an aminal becomes meat product. I hope my friends, who are animal protectionist forgive me this. In my next post, I will put some pictures from the slaughter, so if you do not want to see blood and how your meat looks like before it is cut into portions you consume, do not look. It is not meant to scare you, make you a vegetarian or show animal brutality. Actually, the animal is killed the fastest way possible by gun and everything after is just processsing of meat. It is meant to be a documentary. If you don´t want me to post it, let me know...

Portraits - Patricia

Ok, I know, I do not do this kind of photography much, I am more outdoor shooting and daylight person. I had only one table lamp and a beautiful girl desparate for some portraits. And because it is getting dark pretty soon, I had to do it this way in my room. I really need to practice in some studio with lightning, but despite all, I am kind of happy with the results.
What do you think?

Briers

Do you like brier tea? I don´t actually. But despite that, I still find them beautiful, especially when I see them in the middle of winter ...
And, I tried brier jam recently and that tastes much better then the tea for me :-) ...

Happy New Year!

May you never walk alone in your " foggy" days ....