The closer we get to New Year's Eve, the more festive the atmosphere becomes in the villages.
Every household is busy, killing pigs, cleaning houses, and stocking up on new year's goods. It's so busy that there's an endless stream of horse-drawn carriages and sledges on the dirt road leading to the district.
Regardless of whether you have money or not, you still have to spend the Chinese New Year in a decent way.
Especially the children who have been noisy all day long during the holidays have brought the atmosphere closer to the New Year.
Lu Lu went to Zhang Shaofeng's house in the morning. As soon as he entered Xiushan Village, he saw children setting off firecrackers early in the morning.
From time to time, there would be a loud explosion, causing snowflakes to fly from the trees, a broken enamel bowl covering the ground to fly high, or a pile of cow dung on the road to fly everywhere.
The string of firecrackers my family bought for New Year's Eve and the three-day New Year celebrations had already been secretly dismantled and dismantled.
Killing the New Year Pig is not just a matter of killing the pigs raised in the village for the people in the village. It is also a grand occasion for the villagers to express their family harmony in the form of a banquet for guests who are busy all year long. It is also a way for relatives and friends to
The reason for gathering together.
This is a very ceremonial thing.
In the early years, for fear of having their tails cut off, a family could only raise two pigs, and they were not allowed to raise sows. The food at home was enough to keep the stomach full, but it was not enough to raise pigs separately.
Just relying on the pigweed obtained from the fields, the pigs raised are skinny and skinny. It's just that at the end of the year, when the grain is divided, you can feed a little rice bran, wheat bran or bean dregs left over from oil extraction to give them a little boost.
, but the effect is touching.
But even so, they will always find ways to kill one at the end of the year. This is not just for eating meat, but also a way of being human.
When Lu Lu arrived at Zhang Shaofeng's house, many people had gathered in the yard. Not surprisingly, they were all young and strong militiamen who got along well with each other in the village.
The yard was lively at the moment. A group of old men who came to help were warming up the fire around the big iron stove. In the iron pot on the stove, a large shallow pot of water was steaming, almost boiling.
When they saw Lu Lu coming in, everyone greeted him warmly.
In the past few months, many people have received meat from him, especially Yibo Huqiu, who shot a lot of wild boars at once, and the bear meat that Lu Lu sent to the village from time to time to share with everyone.
These things allow many families who cannot afford to kill pigs to live a prosperous new year.
He is naturally very popular.
Zhang Shaofeng was busy handing out cigarettes to people. When he saw Lu Lu, he quickly came over and said, "Here he comes!"
Lu Lu nodded and looked at the dozen or so men in the yard: "With so many people, how many pigs are you planning to kill?"
"Kill two of them!" Zhang Shaofeng laughed.
"Big family, what are you doing!" Lu Lu was a little surprised.
Not many people can kill two pigs these days. Of course, Lu Lu also knows that after killing two pigs, Zhang Shaofeng's family will only be able to keep one pig.
Half of the pigs killed every year have to be sent to the state-owned purchasing station in the district, graded and purchased at a prescribed price, and then flowed to the city to supply urban residents.
Lu Lu was thinking that after the Chinese New Year, he would have a few at home to keep.
At the end of the year, it’s time to kill two people, at least so that everyone can have fun together.
This atmosphere should still be there.
"What a big family. I got pigs for raising last fall. The largest one weighs more than two hundred kilograms now. There is another one I bought together. It only weighs a hundred kilograms now. I doubt it.
Pigs from the same litter will not grow if they are kept together, and if they don’t look pleasing to the eye, we might as well kill them together.”
Zhang Shaofeng said, leading Lu Lu to the pigsty in the corner of the yard.
The pen was padded with thick pine needles, and two pigs dug a hole in the corner. They lay huddled together, steaming, and they had no idea that they were about to be stabbed.
When they saw someone coming to the pen, they all just looked up, snorted twice, and then lay down again. The two pigs indeed looked completely different.
In another small pen next to it, the two pigs bought this year weighed only forty or fifty pounds, and they were humping in the pen.
Wu Yuejia opened the door and walked out. First she smiled at Lu Lu, then turned to Zhang Shaofeng and said, "The noodles are already cooked. I invite everyone to come in and eat noodles."
"Okay!" Zhang Shaofeng responded and patted Lu Lu on the shoulder: "Let's go eat noodles."
Lu Lu didn't know how to write, so he entered Zhang Shaofeng's house first, brought a bowl of cooked noodles and ate first.
Zhang Shaofeng was busy going to the stove to greet others.
Lu Lu knew that after eating the noodles, it was time to kill the pig.
A group of old men rushed into the house, and Wu Yuejia and several women who came to help were busy serving noodles.
While they were eating noodles together, one of the militiamen asked Lu Lu: "Have you ever killed a New Year pig before?"
"I've killed them before!" Lu Lu said with a smile, "But we used to kill New Year pigs on the farm, and it was easier than this."
"How to kill?" Lu Lu's words aroused his interest.
"Just carry the gun into the pig farm, shoot it down, then pull it out and clean it up, and that's it!"
Lu Lu's words were not bragging, they were true. He did this just the first year after he left the farm and returned to the city. The professional pig slaughterer at the pig farm was not around, so he did it to save trouble.
His words made the militiaman stunned for a while: "The blood has not been released, it is all inside the meat. The meat cannot be released, and it will easily spoil when the weather is hot."
"With so many people on the farm, the meat would have been eaten long ago without a chance to wait until the weather is hot."
"That's true!"
After eating the noodles, Zhang Shaofeng gave them another round of cigarettes, and then went to the warehouse to find a rope. Everyone followed him out of the house, and started arranging the chopping boards, and then started catching the pigs with ropes and sticks.
This is a time to exert effort. Usually, in this case, the participants are very active, and those who are timid will be looked down upon.
The key is to be cautious at this time. If you are not careful and the pig breaks free, it is easy to hurt people. You must not be careless.
Seeing a stranger come into the pen, the two pigs seemed to realize that their end was coming. They howled and bumped around in the pen, preventing anyone from getting close to them.
Even more strong men had to be put into the small pen to surround the pigs. They would seize the opportunity to grab the big pig's ears and pull its tail out of the pen. With so many people, Lu
Lu couldn't get involved at all, so he just watched from the outside.
This pig can only fight with a few people, but it gets into trouble with its head facing out, butt pointing in, and crouching into the corner of the circle. It squats and cannot get up. When it pulls its ears, it roars heartbreakingly. If it gets really anxious, it will throw its head around.
, pouting a few times, trying to shake off.
After feeding for more than a year, even the tusks of domestic pigs have sprouted, but they must not be touched.
Even though he only weighed over 200 kilograms, he was quite powerful. From time to time, someone would be thrown to the side and staggered, or knocked to the side, causing bursts of laughter.
Several people finally dragged the pig to the pig-killing table that had been prepared in the yard and stopped it. They quickly tied the four legs with a thick rope, and then found a thin rope and stuck the tusks in the pig's mouth.
With the pig's mouth tied tightly in a circle, several people worked together to lift the pig onto the table and hold it down.
It only weighed more than two hundred kilograms, so how could it be stronger than a few strong men? It was pinned down so hard that it couldn't move.
After hunting for such a long time, many wild boars died in Lu Lu's hands. However, Lu Lu had never done anything about killing domestic pigs. Therefore, when the butcher was hired to kill the pigs,
He looked at it most carefully.
He was a tall and thick man in the village, his surname was Liu, and his name was Liu Gensheng. He looked like he was in his forties. It was said that when he was in the production team, he had been killing the pigs in the village.
Maybe it’s because the pigs were killed a lot, which brings with it a certain evil spirit.
I saw him holding the rope that tied the pig's mouth tightly in one hand, pulling the pig's head to prevent it from moving, and then holding the knife and hitting the pig's trotters hard. While the pig was howling, the knife quickly struck
After stabbing the pig's neck and stirring it a few times, blood spurted out and a lot of it splashed on his body and face, making the evil spirit even stronger.
Under the pig's neck, a basin for collecting blood had already been placed. Some water and salt were put in it, and the pig's blood dripped into the basin. From time to time, someone stirred it with a clean stick.
Liu Gensheng's technique was very accurate. It didn't take long for the pig to die.
The rope that tied the pig's feet was untied. Liu Gensheng rubbed the knife on the pig several times and made a small cut on the hoof of one pig's foot. Several young people took turns and kept using it.
Tie Jin blew air into it until the pig swelled up like a balloon, then tied the opening for blowing air with a fine hemp rope, then was lifted aside, brought boiling hot water, and scalded while shaving.
Blowing air into the pig's body makes the pig swell up. When Lu Lu saw it for the first time in his previous life, he thought it was very strange, but now he is no longer surprised. It is just for shaving.
In fact, you don't need to blow air, you can directly use hot water to shave and it can be smoothed out quickly.
However, just because of the air blowing, the pig after being shaved looks straight, white and fat.
There were a lot of people, so when a few people were assigned to shave, the others went to catch the smaller pig and started to slaughter it.
Lu Lu couldn't intervene before, but when it came time to disembowel the intestines, he was able to help a little. He had already opened the intestines of many wild boars, and he was already proficient in this technique.
The heart, lungs, intestines and intestines were picked out and put into basins by category. Naturally, someone took the intestines and dumped the stolen goods inside, turned them over and washed them, and kept them for the blood sausage.
Cut off the pig's head and tail, remove the four legs, and cut it in half along the spine to complete the killing of the pig.
At this moment, Liu Gensheng came over with a knife, cut off a piece of fat from the pork spine, put it in his mouth and ate it raw, praising the pork for its deliciousness.
This scene made Lu Lu speechless for a while.
He really couldn't associate raw pork with the word "delicious". Moreover, looking at the way Liu Gensheng put the fat meat into his mouth and only chewed it for a few times before swallowing it, it seemed that it had nothing to do with "delicious".
Otherwise, why not savor it carefully.
It wasn't until Liu Gensheng went to the house to drink tea that a militia brother next to him said: "How can this raw meat be delicious? He obviously got the habit of killing pigs for the production team a few years ago when there was a shortage of oil and water. At that time
It was rare to get oil and water, so if he wanted to eat lard, he would kill pigs near the end of the year. He could use this method to get more oil and water.
It would be good if he could eat some soybean oil... If it were me, I wouldn't be able to eat it. He can swallow it without frowning, which is considered amazing. Then again, that's not how he eats it.
He can’t grow so big.”
After Lu Lu heard this, he also felt that it made sense.
The little daughter-in-law who came to help Zhang Shaofeng's house also came over at this time to sort out the meat that needed to be used for cooking, and took it back to the house to prepare for lunch.
A pair of twins from Zhang Shaofeng's family had been following around early, waiting for the pig urine bubble.
This is a toy for children. Take it out and blow it with all your strength until it becomes a round ball. It is also tied with a thin hemp rope and placed on the snow to play as a ball.
This year, two pigs were killed and two pig urine bubbles were obtained. The two brothers each got one and ran out with it.
Only Zhang Shaofeng's family is willing to let their children play like this. Other families will pick up the pig urine. It is still meat after all, and they are reluctant to waste it like this. The key is that this thing can also be used as medicine - if a child wets the bed,
You can eat this stuff, it is said that it can cure it.
With two pigs and more than a dozen men, the work was done in just over an hour. All that was left was to sit on the big kang, chat, drink tea, and wait for lunch.