[Sca-cooks] The Sacrifice of the Slaughter

Suey lordhunt at gmail.com
Tue Sep 11 16:39:14 PDT 2012


Ana Valdes wrote:
> Again, my point was and still is many recipes we consider as cruel
> were based on need and uses of the food and the food chain. As you say
> animales must be killed to be eaten but you could kill the animals
> with a sense of empathy and kindness. In Groenland and in the North of
> Europe the same people ask the animal forgiveness before they hunt
> them.
> Ana
I think that people who object to killing animals as those who have not 
experienced hunger over an extended period.
The ritual of sacrificing a pig is performed in order to survive the 
winter months when no vegetable products are available.
Its fine being a vegetarian today but a totally different story during 
the Middle Ages.
Even today when animals are privately or as with the bulls in Spain, 
publicly killed, there is an art in the killing which seems to have been 
buried in Anglo-Saxon education. A slaughter man  or a bull fighter, and 
I cannot repeat this enough, is not invited back if the kill causes pain 
to the animal.
In bull fighting we do see torreros knealing in the bullright asking 
their god or their virgin for assistence in a good kill, which means 
severing the aorta with one swing of the sword or the dagger..
Hemingway pointed out in the Sun Also Rises or whatever the book is 
called the panic one can feel face to face with an animal 10 or 20 sizes 
bigger. It is man over beast.
Once when ready for the pig sacrifices my slaughterman said he was 
sacred. The first pig weighed one ton. If the pig bit, he could have bit 
off the slaughter man¡s thigh. The man had a very large muscular thigh. 
- It it had caught me by the waist I suppose he would have cut my body 
in half.
That pig went down well. The last one added to the group by mistake. She 
escaped, tore down the metal fence and was lassoed by the river. Six men 
herded her back to the butcher's block, Finally steam came out of the 
slaughter man's nose, he was so angry as he lowered the ax. When he 
opened her up he was appauled. Had he known she was pregnant he would 
have never sacrificed her.
Following the sacrifice, we prepare sausages, hams, loins and hang them. 
This is very hard work. After the slaughter we spend at least two days 
on our feet chopping, kneading, stuffing, boiling etc. etc.
Eating meat today means going to the supermarket. Eating in the Middle 
Ages was the result of great sacrifices.
Suey






More information about the Sca-cooks mailing list