10th Post "THE PAST IS MYSELF"

HOG KILLIN’, CHITTLIN SOAKIN’ and BLADDER BUSTIN'


Three domesticated species of livestock were raised on the family farm for human consumption, beef, poultry and swine, (cows, chickens and hogs). Of the three, we ate only two, chickens and hogs. Cows were used for milk and the bulls, when small calves, were castrated for weight gain and to be sold for meat processing. Castration was also an act performed on small male pigs. This kept the pork from becoming impregnated with the “male strength” as it was called, and the meat would taste better. That which was removed from the male animal was often referred as “Mountain Oysters”, I never ate them because I never liked them, however to other members of the family they were a delicacy.

We never ate beef, no member of the family knew how to cook beef. I remember well, one summer when Mr. Hardy Adams, no close kin, butchered a steer. He loaded the chunks of beef into a Nehi Grape Cold Drink Box, covered it all with ice, loaded the entire contraption on the back of his 1936 Chevrolet Pick Up Truck and started peddling his meat to the locals in the Yellow Creek Valley.

The crippled grandmother purchased a chunk of Mr. Hardy’s beef, placed it in a large pot, covered it with water, placed it on the wood burning cook stove, and boiled it all afternoon, all night and until the middle of the next day. When the meat was removed from the boiling pot, it had shrunk to about half the original size and was so tough nothing would cut it.

The spinster aunt school teacher hollered, “Mammy, there is nothing in the house that will cut this meat”!

We weren’t good keepers of cutlery until hog butchering time, then the knives would be filed, honed and sharpened until they were capable of shaving the hair on the men folk’s arms, then they were deemed acceptable for hog killing.

Since nothing would cut through the tough beef, the chunk was pitched out to the dogs. Two Coon Hounds, one bird dog and a Shepherd Cattle Dog could not even chew the tough mass set before them, and after a couple of days lost interest and didn’t go near it anymore. They were more prone to attacking chicken entrails thrown on the ground where a fresh killed chicken was being butchered for a fried chicken breakfast.

The family ate primarily pork and chicken from the domestic menu, however wild game was plentiful and many were the breakfasts of rabbit or squirrel with gravy, hot biscuits, fried sweet potatoes and grits.

Every once in a while the crippled grandmother would have a “hankering” for a baked possum. She would order my uncle to go into the woods at night to obtain the delicacy she desired. With a coon hound, shepherd, bird dog and a lantern for light, tow sack (burlap bag) and me at his heels, my uncle would oblige.

We would trudge off into the night and soon we would hear the dogs baying, having “treed” a possum in the top of a young sapling. The tree would be given a good hard shake and the possum would come flying out of the tree and land on the ground in a sullen mood. The possum, grabbed by the tail and tossed into the tow sack, would begin the journey to the house to become a future meal.
Grandmother had a dead Cedar Snag which was totally encompassed with chicken wire. I later saw the same type of arrangement in Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo where the birds were held captive, this was the type of arrangement made around the old snag.

The crippled grandmother would have the possum incarcerated for a couple of weeks and feed the varmint grain to “clean him out”, as she would say. Then after the time necessary for “cleaning out”, the possum would be butchered, soaked in salt water, placed in a baking pan and have sweet potatoes piled around the carcass and baked in the wood burning stove oven. The meat was greasy and not to my liking, I liked coon more than possum, coons did not eat carrion, possums did.

Hog Killin’ Time came during the cold months of late fall and early winter. Word would get around to neighboring farms that on a certain day “Miss Addie” was going to kill hogs. Usually the weather was cold enough just prior to Thanksgiving.

The crippled grandmother would always send word to Truman Burgess, who she believed was the best “shot to the brain” and also the best “pig sticker” in the community. The shooter had to be accurate, get in the pen with the hogs that were being butchered, fire a .22 bullet straight between the eyes of the hog to stun it enough for the uncontrollable drop to the hind quarters and then rush in with a sharp butcher knife and slit the throat. This was, in essence, like the Jewish Custom of Kosher. The heart would pump out all the blood prior to the finishing of the carcass.

The danger in a hog killing was to be attacked by the hogs. A wounded hog could easily kill a man. Hogs have been know to attack and actually eat a human. Even the possibility of having a hand or arm bitten off by a mad hog was disquieting enough to exercise extreme caution and bravery on the part of the primary butcher. We usually had six or seven hogs to butcher on “hog killin’ day”.

The night before butchering day, the scalding pan was filled with water, many buckets of water were required to fill the pan. The scalding pan was a large vessel. the size required to hold a full grown hog of six to seven hundred pounds. The water would be almost boiling and the hog would be lowered into the water for the purpose of loosening the bristle (hair) so it could be removed from the carcass by scraping. The hog would be rolled over and over in the water with log chains, at the proper time, the carcass would be pulled out onto oak planks alongside the scalding pan for the scraping to begin.

Hog Killin’ morning would begin around 2:00 AM with a fire being built under the scalding pan. The ambient temperature would be in the twenty degree range, the hogs to be slaughtered would be aroused and penned in a small area and kept calm with some ears of corn. When the slaughtering began all Hell broke loose with growls, grunts, squeals and men yelling directions to one another until the last pig lay in a prone position.

After the scalding pan, hog carcasses were raised to a “gangling pole”, hung upside down and the cleaning of the vital organs would begin. The only thing not used from the hog was the squeal, everything else was utilized in some way, even the bladder.

Usually three days were required for a hog killing, butchering and “blocking out” were the first day, trimming the meat and sausage making the second day, lard making and cleaning utensils the third day.

Blocking the meat required the use of chopping axes, double edge axes associated with felling trees. Hams, Shoulders, Back Strips, Ribs, Pigs Feet and all other associated large carcass sections which would be hung in the smoke house to cure. The first day of the butchering required the meat to be blocked and all the “natural animal heat” to leave the carcass before any preservation could begin.

While the hog was hanging from the gangling pole and the interior organs were being dropped into a number twelve wash tub, two items of interest were always in the forefront of my mind. The bladder which belonged to me and the intestines which the adults would consider a delicacy called “Chittlins”, or in politically correct company, “Chitterlings”.

The intestines would be taken to the creek and “washed out”, placed in a large flour sack, tied with baling wire and attached to a log chain and placed in the creek where the water would flow over and around the contents for two weeks. Each day would require a check to be certain no varmint had “made off” with the guts.

Back at the smoke house large boards were placed inside with the meat parts laid out for total cooling, meanwhile inside, preparations were being made for “sausage making and sausage sacking”. Meat grinders were set up and hog parts were loaded into the grinder while someone turned the crank, this job usually fell to me.

The ground meat exited the grinder and fell into large vessels used for mixing; salt, sage, cayenne pepper and other spices that were added to the meat and mixed by hand. While all this was taking place, large skillets were placed on the wood burning cook stove frying samples of sausage for flavor testing. “Here, taste this”, “What does it need”? “More sage”?, “More salt”?, “Is it hot enough, or does it need more pepper”?

Spare ribs would be set aside to cook with a large pot of Sauerkraut freshly removed from the giant kraut crocks and everyone would remark and talk about getting “greasy”, their way of commenting on having large quantities of fresh pork meat available.

After the meat was trimmed and the hams, shoulders and bacon slabs appeared picture perfect, the meat would be placed in a salt box to absorb the salt which would preserve the meat as it would later hang in the smoke house without refrigeration. The salt box would contain several hundred pounds of salt and the meat would be rubbed with salt and then placed in layers with salt between each layer of meat.

The trimmings would be placed in an iron kettle and “cooked down” to render the fat and make lard, with the remaining pieces of the original ingredients becoming “cracklings”, a wonderful ingredient for crackling corn bread on a cold winter’s day.

The sausage was sacked in long narrow sausage sacks that would be coated with flour and hung in the smoke house, while some of the meat would be shared with neighbors, especially the ones who had helped in the butchering.

I had my hog bladder, which when inflated, would appear as a balloon. The main idea was to place several dried beans inside the bladder, blow it as hard as possible and tie the end with a piece of string or rawhide and you had, when it dried completely, what we called a play pretty. Toys were non existent in my world. The bladder could be kicked around like a ball or shook and the beans would rattle but the primary purpose was the part played in ringing in the New Year.

After two weeks, the hog entrails were taken from the creek, they would be split open and washed and scraped to remove the intestinal lining, then boiled repeatedly in an iron kettle over an open fire, with fresh water being poured into the kettle for each boiling. Some of the “chittlins“ would be fried in lard and eaten with a hot pepper sauce, some were eaten boiled. I tasted them only once and never ate them. They tasted and smelled like hog manure to me. My father’s family, as well as my mother’s family, loved them and ate them whenever they had a chance until they passed away.

Even as late as the 1980s, my cousin would accompany my father to the VFW in Dickson where a monthly “All You Can Eat” Chittlin supper would be staged with people coming from all walks of life to enjoy this delicacy. Only Negroes and Southern Whites ever ate this cuisine as far as I know.

The Hog bladders were used on New Year Day to celebrate the arrival of a New Year. We would jump up and stomp down on the bladder to bring forth an explosive sound synonymous with a shotgun blast. Just as you would blow up a paper sack and then burst it between your hands, my bladders would have a percussion many times louder. I always thought I might even be shaking the ears of the Robert Choate Family up on Nubbin Ridge Road who always shot off dynamite on Christmas Morning.

NOTE: The family always used Diamond Crystal’s “Jefferson Island” salt for meat preservation, however after 1979, when “hog killin’ “ came around the following year another brand had to be used. Below is the reason why:

LAKE PEIGNEUR

And away goes the lake down the drain!

Flashback to Thursday, November 21, 1980. This day may seem of little importance to you.
However, if you were living near New Iberia, Louisiana, you will probably never be able to forget the strange series of events that took place on this date. Initially, this day started out just like any other day (all strange stories seem to begin this way). The sun was just about to rise on Lake Peigneur. Located on this 1,300 acre lake, which was just three feet in depth, was Jefferson Island, home to the beautiful Live Oak Gardens botanical park.

Contrasting with this natural beauty were the many oil and gas wells dotting the lake's perimeter.
Here we find the Wilson Brothers Corporation, which had been hired by Texaco, drilling a test hole at Well No. 20. The first 1,227 feet of drilling seemed to go very smoothly. But something started to go haywire at 1,228 feet.

The five-man night crew had run into some drilling problems during their shift and decided to stay a while until the seven men day crew showed up at 6:00 AM. By 6:30 AM, the drilling rig started to tilt slightly. The crew suspected that the drilling rig was collapsing under their feet. They radioed Texaco's district office in New Iberia about the problem. Both crews decided to abandon the platform and head for shore, which was just 200 to 300 yards away.

The water of Lake Peigneur slowly started to turn, eventually forming a giant whirlpool. A large crater developed in the bottom of the lake. It was like someone pulled the stopper out of the bottom of a giant bathtub.

The crater grew larger and larger (it would eventually reach sixty yards in diameter). The water went down the hole faster and faster. The lake had been connected by the Delcambre Canal to the Gulf of Mexico, some twelve miles away. The ever-emptying lake caused the canal to lower by 3.5 feet and to start flowing in reverse. A fifty foot waterfall (the highest ever to exist in the state) formed where the canal water emptied into the crater.

The whirlpool easily sucked up the $5 million Texaco drilling platform, a second drilling rig that was nearby, a tugboat, eleven barges from the canal, a barge loading dock, seventy acres of Jefferson Island and its botanical gardens, parts of greenhouses, a house trailer, trucks, tractors, a parking lot, tons of mud, trees, and who knows what else.

A natural gas fire broke out where the Texaco well was being drilled. Let's not forget the estimated 1.5 billion gallons of water that seemed to magically drain down the hole (does the Coriolis effect come into play here?). Of course, there was the great threat of environmental and economical catastrophe.

I'm sure that by now you are wondering what could cause this mess? It was actually quite simple: Texaco was drilling on the edge of a salt dome. Unfortunately, salt domes tend to be the home of salt mines. Yes, they drilled right into the third level of the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine that had been operating nearby.

It's not that Texaco was unaware of the salt mine. They knew it was in the vicinity, but they did not know that it was exactly where they were drilling. Texaco had contacted the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, which had, in turn, contacted Diamond Crystal. Unfortunately, the necessary communications failed to take place and the disaster occurred.

Of course, freshwater in a salt mine is a big problem. When the water comes in contact with the salt, the salt dissolves. And, of course, in a salt mine, most of the sodium chloride (salt) is removed and pillars of salt are left in place to support the roof above (most of the tunnels were as wide as four lane highways with 80 foot high ceilings). Dissolve out these pillars and all the land on the surface will start to cave in. Which, in turn, means that the small hole that Texaco drilled became bigger and bigger as the salt dissolved away.

I should mention that there were fifty workers in the mine when the disaster occurred. An electrician working in the mine noticed that water was starting to collect at his feet and heard the gurgling of water over his head. He quickly called in the alarm. Luckily, the mineworkers had just held a safety drill on the previous Saturday, so they knew exactly what to do. The lights were flashed on and off three times and a paging system was used to contact all workers of the evacuation order.
Nine of the miners were working in the 1,300 foot third level. They immediately hopped into the mine's steel cage and were hoisted to safety. The remaining forty-one workers were working at 1,500 feet below the surface on the fourth level. They quickly ran up to the third level, only to find that the corridor to the elevators was blocked by waist-deep water. The workers were able to use some of the carts and diesel powered vehicles in the mine to drive to the 1,000 foot level, where they caught an elevator to the surface.

That was one close call! Of course, they all now had to face an even tougher challenge - they were all suddenly unemployed. After two days of water pouring in, the mine was totally filled and all of the heavy duty equipment used to mine the salt was destroyed.

Astonishingly, there was no loss of human life, although three dogs perished (Did you ever notice how people get more upset when a dog dies in these oddball stories? They seem unmoved when it's a person.)

One man, Leonce Viator, Jr., was actually out fishing with his nephew Timmy on his fourteen foot aluminum boat when the disaster struck. The water drained so quickly that the boat got stuck in the mud and they was able to walk away! Luck was certainly on their side.

Federal mine safety experts from the Mine Safety and Health Administration found it impossible to determine who was to blame for the salt dome collapse (mainly because all of the evidence went down the drain).

Of course, a disaster like this leads to endless lawsuits. Diamond Crystal sued Texaco. Texaco counter sued Diamond Crystal. The Live Oak Gardens sued both Diamond Salt and Texaco. One woman sued Texaco and Wilson Brothers for $1.45 million for injuries (bruised ribs and an injured back) received while escaping from the salt mine.

In the end, Texaco and Wilson Brothers agreed to pay $32 million to Diamond Crystal and $12.8 million to the Live Oak Gardens in out-of-court settlements.

Eventually, the land above the salt mine stabilized and life returned to normal. The Live Oak Gardens was rebuilt on its remaining land. The environmental catastrophe that was anticipated at the time of the accident never materialized. Nine of the barges eventually popped back up like corks (the drilling rigs and tug were never to be seen again).

The salt mine was permanently closed, but most of the workers were able to find suitable employment. The torrent of water helped dredge Delcambre Canal so that it was two to four feet deeper. And of course, the three foot deep Lake Peigneur was now 1,300 feet deep!

The moral of this story? The next time that you need a well drilled, make sure someone has checked to see what you are drilling into!

The abve article about Lake Peigneur is a copy authored by a writer: "Steve Silverman" with information substantiated by the New Orleans "Times - Picayune".