Sep
24
2009
Pig in to freezer…how much goes?
‘That’ time is approaching…the little piggies we have nurtured from piglets are now fully grown and ready to go to the sausage factory in the sky. Well, the slaughter house/butcher in the next town. I feel a little sadder about this than anticipated … watching them potter about in the Autumn sunshine is quite lovely. They have a huge enclosure and have led a pretty charmed life. Sorry about the big chopper that is coming to chop off your head (with apologies to Oranges & Lemons).
But their impending end brings a logistical challenge: where on earth are we going to put all that meat? And how much meat does one pig produce? Or, more to the point, how big a freezer do I need to buy…how many cubic litres must it be…so big…or SO big? PigWomanJan tells me it’s a reasonably compact amount of meat but it’s going to involve a chest freezer purchase. I love that, I’m to be a chest freezer owner at last! Hoorah.
I am a child of the 70s and now I’m going back to the 70s with the purchase of a chest freezer. Do they still have those wire basket jobbies for the top layer? And must they be filled with Sarah Lee Black Forest Gateux, popsicles, Crispy Pancakes and broad beans from MrRandom’s allotment that no one had the heart to refuse, garnished with 10 years of ice because there’s never a good time to defrost a chest freezer is there?
Of course there won’t be much room for such fancies in my chest freezer as it will be filled full of pig meat. We have decided not to have the pluck, however. It took a while to decide, but we don’t want the pluck. The pluck is the lungs, heart, liver and stuff…offal I suppose. Who gives a pluck?
The chest freezer will live in the newly cleared out garage. This is all fine and good although it plays to the second of my two major fears in life. I have this ‘thing’ that one day I will open our garage door and find a dead body in there or, worse, someone living rough who attacks me. My other fear is finding someone dead in a chest freezer. Now I could potentially encounter BOTH horrors all in the one trip down the garden path.
I am plucking BRICKING it, I am.
I’m a little sad for your piglets as well. On that note I have some great sausage recipes (I mean recipes that use sausage, not ones about making it). Good luck with the purchase of your new chest! >_<
In the south, there is no such thing as to much pork!!! LOL!
So many things to think about when purchasing a chest freezer. I agree about the whole body issue. That’s kinda what they remind me of too.
When I was a little girl, my brother and I fed the neighbor’s pigs. We had our favorite little pig that we called “Half Pint”. I don’t think we ever thought about Half Pint growing up and filling someone’s freezer… there always seemed to be another Half Pint to replace him. (We didn’t have a freezer, though… we went into town to the local meat locker, where we had a storage space. Always a fun trip in the middle of summer!)
Aw, poor piggies, but I’m sure they’ve had a good life. And yum, bacon sarnies and roast pork coming up (I won’t tell my vegetarian husband!). Exactly how many pigs are we talking about here?
And thank you for introducing me to ‘pluck’ – what an evocative term for offal and stuff! xx
oh, you wouldn’t want to visit us then! My husband wrote about our Zombie Alert and the Very Strange Freezer Goings On near us:
http://mistermacro.blogspot.com/
I think your MoJo has returned..perhaps she likes bacon? Very funny post…I don’t mind garages or freezers…it’s creepy basements that get me! Shuddderrrrrrr….
that’s a whole lot of pig… how cool to have a chest freezer..
the light is beautiful on the snout of your pig, that you’re going to brutally send to the slaughter…and eat over the coming year. i say make lots of bacon, baby. then there won’t be any room in that freezer for a body. (well, except the body of the pig, of course.)
I have memories of almost falling into our freezer, and getting stuck to the metal baskets. Searching through ten year old lamb kidneys to find something normal for tea.
Oh Lord my mother had a chest freezer that she got from a little grocer when they got a new one. It had a big lid that you had to slid back like the ones you buy icecream from. Yum.. there’s lots of great things from a pig but I agree you don’t need the awful parts.. get it!!
Almost everyone over here (except us) has a freezer in the garage for the deer that they shoot. Sad.
awwww the poor pigs. I think I’d have a hard time going from nurturing to eating, although I do quite like pork. hmmm….and chest freezers are the best! Yuck re: the pluck! eww
I feel sorry for those cute creatures – but I love good ham (and not reconstituted ham-ish pinky stuff). i am just spending a few days at the german-swiss-austrian border and enjoying my friend’s fast line. i just had a look to all of your posts from the last weeks to see the photographs which didn’t come with our line. cheers from lake bodensee eliane