pjbooks Chapter 5 Slaughtering Pigs
Chapter 5 Slaughtering Pigs
The first thing they did when they got home was to pour themselves a cup of cold tea from the teapot and gulp it down.
The first thing to do after drinking the water was to start a fire, as a considerable amount of boiling water was needed to remove the hair from the two wild boars.
I added some water to the teapot, and poured the remaining two bottles into the pot. Now it's a race against time; the first wild boar had been dead for over an hour.
Fortunately, it's not too hot yet, probably less than 20 degrees Celsius. It'll be really hot around 1 or 2 pm.
"Xiaoxue, go and call Mom and Second Brother back."
The workload of working two pigs is too great, and it takes too much time for one person to do it all. At this point, all other work has to give way to the meat.
After Lin Xue left, Lin Chuan took a cold shower, changed into some old clothes, and started preparing tools. Just as he finished, Lin Feng rushed back.
"Brother, Xiaoxue said you hunted two wild boars, where are they?"
"Here you are."
Following Lin Chuan's finger, Lin Feng rushed towards the wild boar in the shady corner of the yard:
"Brother, how did you manage to kill them? That's amazing, those two are so big."
Before returning, Lin Chuan had already instructed Lin Xue not to mention that they had been forced to climb the tree, and it seems that Lin Xue didn't say anything.
Two minutes later, Mom returned with Lin Xue by the hand, and Mom asked the same question.
Lin Xue pointed to her mouth from behind her mother's back, then shook her little hand.
Lin Chuan gave her a thumbs up, which made her laugh.
Lin Chuan's account to the two was that he took Lin Xue up the mountain to set traps, where they encountered two wild boars. He blinded one of them, and the other died after crashing into a tree. The other one got stuck in a tree and was killed by Lin Chuan's sword.
That's the complete truth, except the part about climbing the tree was removed.
Faced with the two pigs, the two men didn't think much of anything, and Lin Feng kept trying to shoot Lin Chuan with a slingshot.
Amidst laughter and playfulness, the group lifted the pig onto a board. Lin Chuan cut a slit in the pig's hind leg and poked a steel bar into it.
The purpose of this is to separate the skin and flesh so that air can be blown inside.
"Brother, how come you can slaughter pigs?"
"Having watched so many pig slaughters, even a pig would have figured it out by now."
They call pig butchers "pig butchers" here, and they basically don't do it themselves, even in 26.
Lin Chuan knows how to slaughter pigs because he had a girlfriend from Daliang in his previous life, and they all slaughtered pigs themselves.
Afterwards, Lin Chuan tried to slaughter a pig himself twice and found that it was quite easy, which stopped his mother from calling a butcher.
In the countryside, people pity those who have nothing and resent those who have something, perfectly illustrating the saying, "I both fear my brother's suffering and fear his brother driving a Land Rover."
With the system around, Lin Chuan had no doubt that he would be able to hunt wild boars again in the future.
It's fine once or twice, but if it happens too often, some people will inevitably have ulterior motives.
Fortunately, their house is located at the very top of the bay, so almost no one comes here unless there's a specific reason.
Lin Chuan poked every part he could find, then inserted a bamboo tube into the cut in the pig's leg and blew air into it. The pig gradually swelled up until it became a round ball.
It's not easy to fake blowing air, so Lin Chuan blew until his mouth was sore. After blowing, he tied the incision to prevent air leakage.
Mom poured boiling water, Lin Chuan took the lead in shaving the fur, Lin Feng also picked up a knife and learned to shave, and the little sister was ready with buckets, basins and dustpans.
It took nearly three hours to finish processing the two wild boars, removing their heads and internal organs, and the remaining bone-in white meat weighed a total of 138 jin (approximately 69 catties).
The meat was carried together to the well behind the house and placed there. The ditch behind the house was always cool and shaded because it was never exposed to the sun, and there was also a pit there.
Lin's father built a roof to prevent fallen leaves from falling into the pit, and deliberately left some space around the edge so that a wooden frame could be placed on top of the basin. It served as a natural summer refrigerator for the Lin family, where the pigeons they caught in the morning were stored.
Calling it a refrigerator is obviously an exaggeration, but the temperature in Inoue is more than ten degrees lower than room temperature, so meat can be kept for the next day without any problems.
Lin Chuan and his mother had already discussed it when they slaughtered the pig. It was already past 2 p.m., the hottest time of day. Selling meat at this hour would not only be unbearable for the person, but the meat might also spoil. It would be better to sell it tomorrow morning.
"I'm so hungry, Mom, you and Xiaofeng are starving, I'll go cook some vegetables."
"Brother, hurry up, I'm starving!"
...
"elder brother."
As she entered the kitchen, Lin Xue called out to Lin Chuan in a sweet voice.
After shaving, Lin Xue was sent to the kitchen to cook rice over the embers. At Lin Chuan's request, they were having rice today, which was already steaming in the pot.
"Xiaoxue must be hungry. Go get some chili peppers to wash up."
Lin Chuan rubbed Lin Xue's head and smiled. Lin Xue smiled with her eyes half-closed, responded, and went to the small room inside the kitchen.
That little hut was sheltered from the sun, and we kept the vegetables we picked that we didn't finish eating there.
Lin Chuan cut two pounds of pork belly, rendered out the fat, and then added the pigeon meat as well.
Once the steam was almost gone, I added dried ginger, shallots, and chili peppers, and stir-fried for a few more minutes. Then I poured the leftover squirrel meat from breakfast into the pot and stir-fried it all together.
The stir-fry tasted amazing, and when served with rice, everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.
Lin Chuan noticed that his mother had also started eating meat, although it was still not as much as the three of them eating together, but it was a good start.
My mom rarely ate meat on her own before; she might only take one or two bites during a meal.
That's the meaning of making money. When you have the means, those "reluctance to part with money" thoughts will naturally change over time.
"Brother, what are we going to do later?"
Lin Feng felt deeply regretful for not being there when hunting wild boars that morning. He looked at Lin Chuan with anticipation, hoping that his older brother would include him in some other activities.
Lin Chuan was well aware of Lin Feng's feelings and said slowly:
"In a little while, we'll go cut some thin wood strips and bring them back."
"Oh, are we not going up the mountain later?"
Lin Feng's expectant expression visibly faded, and his mother chimed in:
"It'll be dark in three hours. Why are you going up the mountain? Don't fall. Xiao Chuan, what are you going to do with those thin wood strips?"
"Aren't we going to sell meat tomorrow? I plan to sell it in the county where the price is higher. Since I'm going anyway, I'm going to make a few cages to see if I can catch some fish to sell with it."
"To catch fish, you use a net, right? How do you catch them with a cage?"
There is a small pond in front of the Lin family's courtyard, about twenty square meters in size, which was dug by someone hired by Lin's father.
There are some fish in it, but they are only used to scoop them out with a net during major holidays to offer as sacrifices to ancestors and to eat.
"I plan to catch them in the river. I can't use a net, and besides, the pond dried up during the Lunar New Year, so there aren't any big fish in it now."
The pond is small, so the fish don't grow very big. There's never been a fish weighing more than ten pounds in it. The highest record seems to be nine pounds and six ounces.
The pond was drained and fished once before the Lunar New Year. The larger fish were all sold, leaving only some small fry.
"Maybe we should just forget about it. How are we supposed to catch fish with cages? It's exhausting enough to transport over a hundred pounds of meat to the county."
Compared to her younger brother and sister, whose eyes were shining, it was their mother who was the only one who cared about whether they were tired.
"Mom, it's okay. We can make a few cages and leave them there. We can also try them out in the river from time to time. I'm planning to take two pounds of meat to Liangzi's house tonight to borrow a bicycle. It won't be tiring with a bike."