27 Luni

One mainstay of Romanian tradition is the pig sacrifice that takes place a few days before Christmas each year.  Fortunately, however small my network of Romanian friends is they always want to make sure that I don’t miss out on any important national holidays.  Such was the case this past December when two Romanian families that I am close with insisted on my participation in their respective celebrations of this time-honored tradition.  Needless to say, with my love of any event involving food (and wine) I jumped on both opportunities.  What I saw was not only continued Romanian hospitality but also a glimpse of a more wholesome, more respectful and perhaps overall better way to approach food.

Like most traditions in Romania, this one is also tied to religion and specifically pays homage to Saint Ignatius.  Every year on or about the twentieth of December any family with the will and means to do so slaughters a pig.  As I understand it, strict adherence to Eastern Orthodox doctrine forbids believers from eating any meat products during the observance of a period called Post.  This, like Lent, is a time of cleansing and sacrifice where devotees show their faith in God.  If my memory serves me correctly, here in Romania this period lasts a full forty days and ends on Christmas Day.  The Pițu family is one that strictly adheres to Post, abstaining from meat products of any kind.  It’s actually quite common during this period to find Post products advertised in grocery stores.  As an example of their seriousness, during this period I brought the family a box of chocolates; a box that went untouched until Christmas day because of the milk contained in the chocolate.  I highlight this not only because of how interesting it is, but also because of the fact that the family goes through all of this work to prepare the pig but can’t actually enjoy it until several days later on Christmas Day.  The Pițu Family did, however, prepare a meal of fresh pork for a couple of my Peace Corps friends and me.  This traditional meal, for those choosing to partake, is called Pomana Porcului, which roughly translates to the Pig’s Alms.  Why all of this is associated with Saint Ignatius is beyond this blogger’s realm of knowledge, but feel free to enlighten us all in the comments section if you would like.

Okay, so the first of my two pig slaughtering extravaganzas was particularly exceptional because my high school Counterpart specifically organized the entire event with her family so that it could be shared with me.  This was actually the first time that my Counterpart and her husband had taken the family lead on this particular event and since they live in the city of Ploiești and can’t actually raise a pig in their fifth floor apartment they bought one.  Luckily the family has a neighbor next to a small piece of land they own outside of the city that has been passed down through the generations.  The next-door neighbor had just what we needed a plump 100-kilogram female; she was promptly named Ghiță, in reference to a game my Counterpart played as a child.

Our day started out early on a cold and rainy Saturday morning on December 17^th.  Yes, I know, not the traditional twentieth of the month, but in this modern world of ours most folks have to work during the week and since the twentieth fell on a Tuesday we had to bend the rules a bit.  My counterpart, her husband and their daughter drove the opposite way out of the city to pick me up in Valea, generously offering to drive me both ways so that I wouldn’t have to bother with public transit.  Immediately upon arriving, their daughter presented me with a colorful homemade drawing.  Even though I have forgotten the exact content, I like to think it was a depiction of Ghiță and us, foreshadowing the fun we were about to have.  After a short drive back across Ploiești we arrived in the small village of Ariceștii Rahtivani.  This is where the family’s property is located and where I met the relatives.  While I was getting acquainted with everyone my Counterpart’s husband went and picked up our pre-slaughtered Ghiță from the neighbor in their family’s hatchback.  Upon their return is when the real fun began and the blowtorches were fired up.

Now that I have been thoroughly initiated into the amazement that is the Pig Sacrifice, I more matter-of-factly think about the description that follows.  For those folks with a weak constitution, now might be a good time to think about smiling babies and two-week old puppies and to skip to the next paragraph.  The whole process obviously starts off with the killing of the pig.  Traditionally, this is done by rolling the pig off its legs, holding it down and strategically cutting a main artery, which leads to the heart.  From this point the pig begins to make the transition from a friendly farm animal we sing so fondly of in Old McDonald Had a Farm, to dinner for the next six months.  Once a member of the European Union, certain additional rules are imposed on member nations that dictate the way livestock must be euthanized.  The idea, of course, being to make the process more “civilized.”  Understandably it takes time before centuries of traditional methods can be phased out, though it is worth mentioning that Romanian’s clearly take this whole process very seriously and have a great amount of respect for their animals.  The next step in the process is to burn the pig’s hair off and to char the skin.  Once upon a time I imagine that this was done over an open fire but these days propane torches get the job done.   Originally, I figured that this process would smell horribly bad.  If you are anything like me, you have probably burned some of your arm hair clear off while in the kitchen and had to deal with the odorous aftermath.  For some reason pig hair isn’t quite as bad, perhaps because we were outside and had a good breeze going.  Once all the hair is gone and the skin is black the pig is thoroughly cleaned with a scrubbing brush and water; the result being a beautiful dark brown caramel color.  This is when the pig really starts to look like dinner.  Next in the process, the head and limbs are removed.  This part also surprised me because I figured my chances of passing out would increase exponentially at the site of a pigs head being cut off, but by this point most of the blood is gone and the inside honestly looks just like a country ham.  Once the limbs and head are removed the pig is rolled over on to its belly and the skin and fat are sliced straight down the back from head to tail.  Another surprise here was how thick the layer of fat actually was, at a solid three or four inches.  Known as Slănină, this is a Romanian delicacy, often lightly smoked, salted and eaten as little cubes.  As the fat and skin are sliced away from the body as whole large sheets, the muscles are exposed and that’s the really good stuff; it’s what you buy perfectly sliced and cellophane-wrapped on little Styrofoam trays at the grocery store in America.  The ribs are then painstakingly removed from the backbone that is then itself chopped into sections and packaged away for making Ciorbă.  Next up are the organs, which are by far larger than I could ever have imagined, taking up a huge percentage of the animal, and if anything in this process smells, it’s the organs.  Sparing you the details of what happens with those it’s fare to say that very little goes to waste.

Even though trichinosis is largely a thing of the past in the United States, they do still check in Romania just to be on the safe side.  Although testing is required by law some families still opt to forgo this step and from what I am told, pretty much every year at least one family ends up sick.  Lucky for me, my Counterpart wasn’t going to cut any corners, either in safety or in my experience.  After cutting off a couple pieces of specific muscle we hopped in the car and drove around the corner to the local veterinary clinic, which turned out to be completely packed.  After waiting a short while we watched one of the technicians sit down at a dinning room table with a steak knife and a glass microscope slide.  He cut off tiny slivers of meat and placed them at equal distances along the glass, taking samples from two different pigs and lining them up next to each other.  The slide was then handed to what I presume was the Veterinarian who placed the samples into a large 1950’s microscope with a small projector so that we could watch the process.  She slowly went through the dozen or so samples checking for signs of contamination before giving us the thumbs up and wishing us “Sărbători Fericite” or Happy Holidays.

Back at base camp everyone was happy to hear that the day’s work, let alone financial investment, were cleared by the veterinarian.  I can’t imagine the disappointment that a family must feel after raising a pig and slaughtering it only to discover they cannot eat it.  Not only that, but if a vet finds out that one of your pigs is contaminated all the pigs that you own are taken and disposed of.  Counting our blessing, we began to dig in.  First was the șorice or pig skin; at first not a particularly appealing thought, but it’s actually quite good when served with salt.  The skin is definitely a little chewy for my taste but has a distinct, smoky flavor that results from the blowtorches.  Next up is the Pomana Porcului that I mentioned earlier.  For this various pieces of muscle meat are cubed up and pan fried to perfection, and served with mămăligă and brânză.  Without a doubt, there is nothing like fresh, locally home grown, antibiotic-free pork.  The only way to make it even better is to throw in some homemade wine and some authentic Romanian music, performed with an accordion, right in front of your eyes by a man who not only survived communism, but could also eviscerate a pig while blindfolded.

Earlier that Saturday I received a call from my neighbor Nicu with the last details on when his pork sacrifice would take place. And even though I had hounded him for weeks about when exactly it would be, I still, in typical Romanian fashion, found out less than twenty-four hours before show time.  Regardless of timing I was thankful for the invitation and even though the țuica was only just starting to kick in from day one, I knew I would be ready for a second round the next morning.  This time I invited two of my Peace Corps colleagues to join me, one of which is a long time volunteer and had witnessed all of this before and another volunteer who had not.  Perhaps fortunately, we arrived about ten minutes late and had again missed the tumultuous last moments of the pig’s life.  Ironically, this is one of the few times that I have been late to a Romanian invitation and the event actually started on time; that is how seriously they take this.  It’s like the Super Bowl.

With coffee in one hand and țuica in the other, we each looked on as the masters of their trade disassembled Ghiță 2 with the meticulousness of a surgeon.  As the hours passed, I could not help but reflect on the state of our food supply chain in the United States.  With the ever-increasing number of farm raised animals, use of antibiotics and obesity inducing quantities of meat that Americans eat, I feel that Romanian traditions such as this one are a real model for how life should be lived.  Where the animals that you grow and the food you eat is respected.  As Nicu puts it: “Super naturala, din Domnezeu,” “Super natural, from God.”