Photo courtesy of Western Carolina University Southern Appalachian Digital Collections
I remember us killing hogs…I remember the big tree in the back yard where one limb was perfect to hoist up the pig…the big galvanized tub of boiling water nearby and rough table for the cutting up. It was always done after the first deep frost, and a woman could not be around it to do any helping if she was having her monthly flow. It was believed that her contact then would spoil the meat…so timing was important.
I remember helping to form and fry the sage sausage patties and putting them in canning jars so mommy could pour in the hot grease to cover the patties. We did no other thing to the jars and they kept fine. …I remember mommy showing me how you could fry a potato in the lard to take that pig taste out of it.
Sometimes all these experiences seem like they belong to another person’s life…they are so removed from my life each day now, I was however having a deja vu moment last week as I was readying for Thanksgiving guests. I hung my tablecloths on the line outside in the cold sunshine. It was colder than I thought….the clothes felt like ice in my hands!!
Laundry day in winter…now I remember how that felt! I am definitely above my raising…but I remember all that work. And when I go back to my old homeplace, I sometimes step in a sunk in spot in the yard and think …oh this is where our hog killing tree was…or step in a low spot on the other side of the yard and remember the outhouse. I remember it all cause THIS apple is never far from the tree.
—Kat Swanson
The first real cold weather of the year has me thinking about the days of hog killing. I’ve never participated in hog killing day, but I’ve heard many stories like Kat’s about the annual event.
Most memories of the day evoke a pleasant feeling of happiness, camaraderie, and good eating for people. Especially after the hog was dispatched and the butchering and putting up started.
Here’s a few posts about hog killing from the archives and also one about sausage making like Kat described.
- Hog Killin Weather
- Humor at Hog Slaughtering Time
- Hog Killin Day
- Sousemeat and Livermush
- Old Timey Canned Sausage
Last night’s video: Bad Falls, Hard Work & the First Color on the Mountains.
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Back home we did it every year because that was part of our winter food. We would fatten that hog up. poor thang didn’t know what was coming later. o it was so good when daddy would go out and slice us a piece of ham.Momma and myself would be fixing breakfast. Those were the days.
I remember hog-killing day with my brothers-in-law. I have to say the yuckiest part of it was when they showed me the head in a bucket. It gave me the creeps because those boys told me they were making “head cheese.” Needless to say, I never ate cheese at any more family gatherings, but boy was that piggy super tasty! 🙂
Pray for Israel✝️
Never been to an old timey hog killin. But we sent three hogs to the butcher this last Friday.
transplanted from west virginia to californina I discovered your blog while researching some words in the book Christy by Catherine Marshall and have been HOOKED ever since. Love the memories invoked here and share your desire to preserve the Appalachian heritage. On our farm hog killing was almost always done the Friday after Thanksgiving, family and friends there to help my Father. ,Thanks for awakening the memory.
I wasn’t around for the killing part (and don’t even remember that being a thing, despite the fact it obviously had to be) but I was completely thrilled the one year I got to stay at my grandma’s much later in the fall than usual and got to grind the meat for the sausage making. I LOVED ‘playing’ with the meat grinder, one of those old kind that bolted to the table. At 10 years old, the youngest one in the room by several decades, I had the energy to just grind that thing all day long. I don’t eat sausage because I don’t care for it, but I have fond memories of that day at the home of my Uncle Bob and Aunt Glee, processing that hog.
I never saw hog killing but I remember my grandma telling me about when she was a little girl (she was born in 1901). She said the children always looked forward to it because when it was finished, the adults cleaned the bladder & blew it up like a balloon for the children to play with.
Continued prayers for Granny & all your family.
I remember hog killing. My job was stirring the cracklings, while cooking, in the big iron kittle. The smoke always followed me no matter what side of the kittle I was on.
Mother canned sausage also, but the best was the canned tenderloin.
My mother said the day I was born Daddy was killing hogs. My Granddaddy hady husband and his to go tell him. My husband and his family killed hogs. Thankfully, I was a city girl and never had to experience the killing of any animals. Prayers for all. Take care and God bless ❣️
Sometimes, it seems my memories should belong to someone much older than I. The days of hog killings, salt boxes, smokehouses, etc. seem like a lifetime ago. (I guess it was by some measures). Hog killings were a big affair at my grandparents house with lots of kin and neighbors to help. We’d usually kill 5-6 at a time and then the work started. We’d always wait till cold weather had arrived. My granddaddy had a saying that went like, “November’s meat will never ruin”. It did ruin one late November around Thanksgiving. The meat was cut up and salted as usual, but the weather turned unusually warm and rain set it. Almost all of the meat turned rancid. His “old wives tale” had forsaken him. I reckon I participated from the time they’d let me till my granddaddy decided to start letting the slaughterhouse kill and cut up his hogs (we still salted/smoked all the meat besides a few cuts). In the last years of his life we stopped all together and began to buy store bought pork. Oh how I miss those days and that home-cured bacon, sausage, and ham. My grands made the best and my mother was the best biscuit maker in 7 counties. I’m proud I got to live those times.
Never participated in a hog killing but I remember when my uncle and aunt butchered a steer they had. Joe Blow, that was our name for the steer, was in the pasture that morning when we left for school, when we got home he was hanging in a tree skinned and gutted. He sure did taste good!!
I was thinking as I was driving this morning, remembering hog killin days. The frost on the ground, the steam rising from the vat we dipped the hog in, cooking out cracklins and cooking out lard, and cleaning chitlins, then making sausage and souse meat. We would have tenderloin and sausage patties with hot biscuits, our homemade butter from our cow’s milk, and our homemade jellies and preserves. What a feast it was! And just as important as the hog killin and the meal, was the time spent with neighbors and family that came to help and got to catch up with all that had happened recently. Friendships bound over time and tradition. My Mom would let me stay out of school on hog killing day to help my Grandma and Papa, and I looked forward to it. I look back now and I wouldn’t trade it for a million dollars. Oh, just to have one more hog killin with all of them….dreams never hurt anyone. Tipper, thank you again for bringing back memories so we don’t forget. Love and prayers to Granny and all of you.
Kathy, all I can say to your comment is Amen. If you leave out the chitlins, none of my family messed with them, the rest of it would mirror my childhood life. My favorite thing to eat after a hog killing was the fried tenderloin, sawmill gravy (hunky doo in my family) and hot homemade biscuits and the homemade jellies. My favorite preserves were made from volunteer citrons that would come back up each year. Times like hog killing spent working with family, neighbors and friends are some of the best memories of my life.
This brought back sweet memories from my childhood of all the activities of hog-killing day. I was too young to actually participate but loved all the uncles, aunts and cousins coming to help. When I was old enough to be in school I wanted to stay home and help. My parents thought education was more important, so to school I went. Thanks, Tipper, for making me smile this morning.
I remember watching my dad shoot a hog in the head for butchering. I only remember one time—but we raised a hog more than once when I was growing up. We would only raise one animal at a time for butchering—sometimes a hog and sometimes a calf. I remember how delicious the sausage was. Mama and dad worked long into the night grinding the sausage, seasoning it, and wrapping it in white freezer paper. I think they ground the entire hog. They had a great sausage recipe. I don’t remember the butchering being so bad. I think the memory of watching a chicken run around after it’s head was chopped off, and then the awful smell after mama dipped them in a tub of scalding water to pluck the feathers was much worse. But in the end—it was all delicious!
I remember h9g killing day so well as a child. it was an exciting day for my brother and me! We got to stay up late because it would take mama and daddy until up in the night to finish the sausage. Believe me they didn’t waste one bit of that hog. We ate the tongue and they made hog head souse from other parts of the head. It was so good. Oh my, I can almost still smell the scent of our smokehouse. What I’d give to really smell a smokehouse!! We ate well, for sure!!
I have already wrote a book this morning, but I can’t help but think of my Daddy when talking about killing hogs. He would say nothing or very little was wasted from a hog, the squeal was even sold to Chevrolet. This was back when the GM car bodies were made by the Fisher Company and as the cars got older the doors were bad to squeak when they were opened and closed.
My great Aunt Grace and her husband, Ernest had hog killing and smoking every year. She let us littles help out with carrying the ham sacks and clean jars for putting up the meat. Uncle Ernest had a log smokehouse, 15 X15 feet with a massive hearth in the center for the smoking fires. In the summer, we liked to go into that old smokehouse; it smelled of hickory and pecan smoke though there was no fire going.
I learned basic sewing on a treadle machine by helping Aunt Grace sew the ham sacks. She and Uncle Ernest sold those hams at the local market along with their eggs. It brought in a substantial bit of money to see them through to next Spring.
I guess I came in on the tag end of that tradition. Dad and my uncle would go halfers on a hog and along about Thanksgiving they would take a day. And it did take a day along with all hands. I think maybe one reason they quit was the timing interfered with Dad’s deer hunting and he had to choose.
Not only do I remember hog killing but I remember killing one by myself. The entire process! Strangely enough I would have totally forgotten it if my oldest sister hadn’t jogged my memory. Needless to say it is not a pleasant experience but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
People who criticize the method of preserving that involves pouring hot grease over fried out sausage need to be aware of the fact that the grease is in the range of 350ºF to 370ºF. Water bath canning works at around 212º and pressure canning 240º. The difference itself is enough to cook a steak to medium rare.
The weather sure has took a turn on the really cool side. We had to turn our heater this morning. It is Fall for sure!
All I can say about those old sayings about women not being able to participate in hog killings, certain garden work etc. when on their periods is; “Bravo!” to whichever clever woman started those sayings!!! In reality though, I guess these practices had their roots in the Old Testament when there was the practice of isolation during menstrual occurrence and also after childbirth due to the rules regarding “uncleaness”. Our customs, back then and now, are interesting and have a wide mixture of origins. I enjoy hearing about them! ( and I am SO GLAD that professional butchers existed when I was little!) Our pig left and returned in labeled white packages!
Don’t do hog killin’…don’t like to see a hog killin’…don’t even wanna be near a hog killin’….but I do like pork. I also have been to a hog being cooked buried in a pit at a luau. That I have found is one of the best pork I have tried. Loved your video from yesterday. The work Matt has done so far is awesome. I am sure driving those posts into ‘that’ soil with all those rocks and possible boulders was not an easy job. No doubt it will be awesome when he finishes. Give Granny and the rest of your team my best. God Bless.
I remember hog killing day at my grandfather’s house. He liked to add nutmeg to the other seasonings in the sausage. My grandmother would fry up a big batch of that sausage to go with her amazing biscuits and gravy. She also canned lots of the sausage. I’d love to get to eat one of those breakfasts with them again.
I remember hog killing time. It was usually around Thanksgiving for my family. My family and my granddaddy would each kill a hog at the same time. The goal was for the hogs to weigh at least 500lbs unlike today when around 250lbs is the “money” hog. The hogs would be fed table scraps “slop” along with other things -no bought feed until about this time of year and then only corn until killing time. The lard would be cooked or rendered out in two black cast iron “wash” pots from chunks of fat. The cooked chunks of fat were cracklings. My granddaddy would not let anyone else but himself do this, the fire from wild cherry wood had to be just right to keep from scorching the lard. Scorching the lard was a great big fear. Grandmother also washed her clothes in these pots, I now own them. The hams, shoulders, fatback or side meat and some other cuts would be put in a large thick sided wooden box and covered with salt to cure and keep. This box was in an outside building. I think every family had their own recipe for sausage, both my family and grandparents had freezers to keep their sausage but I do remember grandmother cooking and putting some up in jars. Because of the change in today’s weather, cold one day, warm the next, meat kept in salt like this would now spoil. I remember a neighborhood boy falling into a 55 gal barrel of the hot boiling water used for scraping the hair off the hogs. He lived but was burned real bad. Two chickens would die nearly every Saturday morning at my grandparents home. Unlike with today’s free range chickens, these chickens were kept in a wire bottom coop raised off the ground and fed nothing but corn and water. You have never had “good” fried chicken until eating one raised like this fried in hog lard and a black cast iron frying pan. I joke and say when a chicken was put into this coop he was on death row. Oh for these memories of the past and how I long to relive them again.
One other thing, anyone remember taking corn, oats or wheat, and other things to the old time feed stores with the hammer mills and having them grind it up to make your own feed. When they added the molasses to this feed it smelled so good you wanted to get a handful and eat it.
when we were kids , we fed the pigs at Granny’s house, one day our pig friends were hanging upside down, dead in the backyard, hog killing!!!
Mr Chester…every time I see or hear the word Dahlonega I think about a dear friend that has passed by the name Joyce Ford…a dear dear friend of mine. It also reminds me of how people who don’t know how to pronounce the word Dahlonega, say dal a nega. It always makes me smile, the word and Joyce. Have a Blessed day.
We Floridians chuckle when we hear folks say KISS-i-mee for Kissimmee. It is Ki-SIMM-ee–but people cannot be sure of the pronunciation until they are told or hear it used correctly a time or two.