The Disznótor

As I promised, I am here to report all of the gory details of the traditional Hungarian pig killing, or disznótor, that I attended on Saturday. Wanting to be the "good little Rotary girl who tries everything once," I woke up bright and early at 5am on Saturday so that I would be at the farm in time to witness the full meal deal (pun intended) of the disznótor. When we arrived at the farm where the day's activities would take place, we traipsed up to the barn and waited for the butcher to arrive. I expected that the barn would be full of little pink pigs, but instead I was greeted by 4 or 5 huge, hairy things that looked like a cross between a black lab and a rhinocerous. Once the butcher had chosen his pig, I watched, trying to stifle giggles, as he chased the pig around the pen trying to corner it. (Once you see the picture of the butcher below you will realise why this was so funny.) As the butcher dragged the poor pig out of the barn and I thought that my ear drums were going to explode from the wretched squeals the pig was making, I realised that I didn't really want to witness the actual death of the poor pig, so my friend Franziska and I busied ourselves with nervous giggling at the butcher who had a very big bum and the cook who was trying to wrestle with one of the pig's legs whilst still wearing his red tartan plastic apron.

Once the deed was done, the pig was tied to the bumper of a truck and dragged to the concrete pad where the rest of the action would take place. The pig was set on the ground and the butcher lit a blow torch and started to burn of all of the hair on the pig's skin. Once this task was completed, the pig was hosed down and hung by his feet on the butchering hooks. The next hour was like all of Biology 20 summed up. The butcher cut open the pig's stomach and gutted him, and then proceeded to chop him into the various cuts of meat. From there, we proceeded to prepare lunch and dinner for the Rotary guests. Pork was added to a big pot of kaposta (cabbage) to make something similar to a stirfry, most of the innards were thrown into a big pot of boiling water and later made into sausages, soup was made, and in the other pot there was a stew that the Hungarians called "blood stew".

My contribution to the meal was that I helped to make sausages. The butcher had brought a bunch of cleaned pig intestine with him which was to be used for the sausages. The intestines were soaked in hot water and then fit over the end of the valve of the sausage maker. I cranked the handle that fed the meat into the valve, and voila, we had a sausage.

The food that we made was delicious and I was exhausted by the end of the day, but my tummy was very full and very happy. I am also happy to report that I have not, nor will I ever stop eating pork. It's just too darn tastey.