The pig is on the table!

There is this Old Custom in some of the Carpathian Parts that the pig has to be slaughtered by Christmas. It is not rendable to keep the pig through the winter and then in on high altitudes the pig becomes stapple food. Although now people use freezers to keep certain cuts, most of the pig is cured under the form of lard, sausages and cured bones with meat.

Parts of the lard are molten into fat, which would be subsequently used for frying. The bowels would be cleaned and would function as casts for sausages and other type of cured charcuterie.

Such a pig weighs around 110 kg and would cover the protein needs of a mountagnard family of 4-5 people, until the begining of March, which usually coincides with the starting of the meat free Easter Fasting.