Saving the Bacon (By Micheál Murphy

By Micheál Murphy

The popularity of bacon and cabbage on the Irish dinner menu stems no doubt from the days when there was little other meat available. Up until the middle of the last century bacon was in many cases home-produced. Where a farm could support a breeding sow, she would have a litter of 10 or 12 banbhs (piglets) twice a year. As I remember in the 1950s and early’60s, a banbh when weaned at eight weeks of age would fetch about £5 at the market. Most small farmers would buy two or three such banbhs to feed on slops, skimmed milk and potatoes or any available food waste. A pig destined for slaughter, which usually happened at six months of age, was fed a more nutritious diet of oats or barley for a few weeks before his ultimate fate. The cereal was intended to harden the flesh. The pig usually weighed approximately 2 cwt or about 100 kg when ready for killing. Depending on size, a family would home-butcher and cure a pig about twice a year.

Every rural parish had a number of men who were skilled in the art of butchering the pig. The job was always done in winter time when meat would not “go off” too quickly. The barn used for the purpose was washed out and a door was laid on the floor to provide a smooth working surface. The pig was starved for 24 hours to clean out the gut as much as possible. The anaesthetic applied was simply a swift blow from a heavy hammer to the head, and then the jugular vein was quickly pierced. The issuing blood was collected as efficiently as possible in enamel basins for use in the making of black pudding later.

Meanwhile a large 5-gallon pot of water was heated on the open fire and the pig, placed on its side on the door, was covered in a layer or two of clean sacking. The hot water was poured over the sacking and left to soak until the hair on the pig’s skin could be scraped off with a blunt knife. The process was repeated on the other side, shaving the pig completely without damaging the skin. At this stage, a stick was inserted between the sinews in the pig’s hind hocks and the pig was raised by a rope to hang, head down, from the rafters. It was washed thoroughly with cold water and dried as much as possible.

The butcher then cut the pig open lengthwise along the belly from the chin to the rear end with a very sharp knife. The most difficult part was cutting through the breastbone while taking care not to rupture the intestines or the stomach. The entrails were then freed by pulling them downwards and outwards from the body wall, avoiding tearing or breaking the intestines. The diaphragm which separates the chest from the abdomen was then cut off so that the heart, windpipe and lungs could be removed. All the entrails were laid on a table to be used later. Very little was wasted.

Any blood in the open carcase was washed out with plenty of cold water and the carcase kept open by inserting some scollops or strong sally rods crosswise in the body. The mouth was also kept open with a stick to ensure complete drainage while the carcase was left to hang for at least 24 hours so that it cooled completely.

The “lights” (lungs) and the liver, if not eaten by members of the household, were shared with neighbours who had a taste for such. The pancreas, known as the “sweetbread”, was also much valued by some people. All fat around the internal organs was carefully removed and rendered down to be stored as “dripping” for cooking purposes.

Twelve-inch lengths of the intestines were cut off and the contents squeezed out before being carefully washed and turned inside out to be used as the casing for black pudding. In former times even the bladder was filled with air (by blowing into it!) and the urethra then tied so that children had their own home-made football.

The head was removed while the pig was still hanging and the carcase sawn vertically in two through the backbone. Each side was then placed on a table, the feet were removed and the backbone cut from the ribs. The backbones and any attached meat were not cured but were eaten as pork or sometimes shared with neighbours who would return the favour when their pig was slaughtered. Hams and shoulders were cut off and boned before curing. The ribs were removed, the sides were cut into “flitches” and all the meat salted thoroughly by rubbing vigorously with the bare hands. Any spaces in the meat, where the bones had been, were filled with fistfuls of salt. A solid bar of salt weighing 28lbs (12.7kg) was bought for this purpose and had to be scraped off with a strong knife before use. (The salting process was severe on hands, often leaving fingers painfully skinned for days afterwards.) The pieces of meat were then packed in a small barrel or a tea chest, each layer smothered in salt to fill all available space before being covered and weighted down. The curing process took about a month after which the pieces were taken out and hung from the rafters or the ceiling at the end

of the kitchen. Smoke from the open turf fire was thought to improve the flavour of the bacon.

Every housewife had her own recipe for making black pudding but in general it consisted of the blood from the pig with flake meal or oatmeal, diced onion, pearl barley and seasoning all mixed together and filled into the above-mentioned lengths of intestine. The ends were tied with twine or thread from flour bags and the ends twisted back and joined together to form a ring. These rings were placed in boiling water until the contents solidified.

Brawn was made by boiling the pig’s head, sometimes along with the feet or crubeens as well as the tail until the meat separated from the bone. The meat and bones were then removed and the meat diced before returning it to the soup. Salt, pepper and spices were added and heating continued until the liquid was reduced to about a pint. This was poured into a bowl and allowed to cool until it set to a jelly. Brawn was considered to be a special treat, always associated with the killing of the pig.

In olden times, the pig was known as “the gentleman that pays the rent”. Not only did he provide a cheap source of protein for the family, he was also a steady source of income. Any pigs not killed at home were sold at markets or to pig factories when they were just 6 to 8 months old. However, the practice of rearing a few pigs on the family farm largely died out in the 1960s. Health and safety regulations, animal welfare issues and the desirability of low salt diets all contributed to the demise of the farm pig. At the same time, intensive rearing in special piggeries and the development of refrigeration, together with a milder process of curing, made home curing less popular. However, pig meat continues to be the most popular meat consumed here because the Irish love their Irish breakfast of bacon, sausage and black pudding as well as their dinners of bacon, cabbage and potatoes.

Photo submitted by Kathleen Ballantyne-Martin.

Back Row (L to R):John McAndrew, Michael Gilmartin, Gerry Henry, John Scanlon. Front Row (L to R): Margaret Killoran, Mary Hogge, Kathleen Ballantyne.