To Kill a Pig

Here's another belated photo album, but this one comes with a warning: if you are squeamish, vegetarian, and/or an observant Jew, you may want to skip it. During my stay with Jocelyne a couple of months ago, she and her parents helped a friend to kill his two pigs. I got to join them for the second. It was one of my favorite parts of this trip, not because I enjoyed watching the slaughter (it was interesting, but not something anyone should do or see often) but because I got to witness people whose family had farmed for generations pass their knowledge down to John, a British man in this thirties who was a relative newcomer to the French countryside. Bizarrely, I could imagine the same scene taking place a hundred years before, with few changes. The tools were primitive, but the people were skilled. After the pig had been hung outside to cure, we shared a leisurely midday dinner with John's family, including little kids, Jocelyne, her son, her parents, Benjamin the foster kid #2, and a couple of friends.