Chapter 399: Butchering Swines
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The cabin was starting to liven up.
Ah Meow and Crispy Noodles, one on the tree and one under the tree, were waiting patiently for a meal. There was one pike grilling; it had been caught by them and would be eaten by them too.
When the pickup truck returned to the site, they were shocked by the big Black Pig on it.
The Black Pig had been oinking loudly on the way here—when it was finally taken down from the truck, it ran into Hans, who was caught off guard. By instinct, it knew that the surrounding area would not be friendly to it, so it started running towards the woods around the site.
Hans shouted, “F*ck it! How dare it bump me! Everyone, go catch it now!”
“Hey Boss, that was a male pig, you sure you wanna f*ck it?” said Turis.
“Stop talking nonsense, go catch it!”
The Black Pig was still running quickly despite its big size; it ran around so fast that no one could catch it.
Soon, the Black Pig reached the border of the site. However, since it was night time, it didn’t notice that the site was surrounded by barbed wire, and ran right into it.
Those chasing behind it laughed loudly, and Hans said to them, “Someone go get my knife inside the house now. It’s time to see some blood.”
Godzilla went to take his knife. The Black Pig saw the knife and panicked, then it ran right into the wire once again.
The people watched in awe as the Black Pig tore through the wire and struggled through it, running away from them.
Ah Meow immediately stood up with its front claw digging into the tree branch; it stretched out its long body as if it were a tiger and lunged forward to the Black Pig, making a loud growling sound.
Ocelots had long and strong legs; their speed was fast and powerful. Before the Black Pig could run away from the site, Ah Meow reached it.
Ah Meow jumped on the Black Pig, trying to bite and tear through its skin. But the Black Pig was bigger in size, so it did not felt any pain; instead it shook off Ah Meow easily.
Fortunately, Godzilla made it in time. He grabbed the Black Pig’s tail and pulled it with him, successfully bringing it back inside the site.
Together with Big Quinn, both of them pressed the Black Pig against the floor. When Hans ran to them holding the knife, and tried to stab the Black Pig, Godzilla stopped him immediately. “No.”
“Why?” Hans asked.
“It will go wild in this position after being stabbed,” Godzilla answered.
After tying the Black Pig’s legs, Big Quinn took out another sharp knife and prepared to slaughter it.
The Playboy came over to the site after hearing what had happened.
“Oh no, please don’t kill the pig in front of me. I can’t stand seeing this cruel scene,” said Akkalou, with fake tears coming out.
“Go to hell. Kill it!!” Hans shouted. His leg, which had been struck by the Black Pig, was becoming painful; some of the skin had even come off.
Li Du stopped Big Quinn and said, “We should find another place that is more hidden to kill the pig. Ah Meow and Crispy Noodles are still kids—don’t let them see this.”
However, Ah Meow and Crispy Noodles didn’t seem to care; they didn’t think of themselves as kids. In fact, they were watching the entire scene with much interest. Due to their smaller size, they tried very hard to squeeze in between the people at the front, and found a perfect spot where they could easily get their claws into the meat.
Both Big Quinn and Godzilla were experts in butchering animals: they started off with letting the blood flow out, then got rid of the hair on the skin. They then cleared out the inner parts of the Black Pig, and washed the meat with clean water which would be distributed to the people later on.
Many Americans didn’t eat the inner parts of animals, but Li Du did; Ah Meow and Crispy Noodles loved to also. So Li Du cleaned all the inner parts by himself and put them in the fridge. Big Quinn saw this and asked, “Hey Boss, why not cook the inner parts now and feed them to Ah Meow and Crispy Noodles?”
“Who says I’m feeding them these? I’m gonna leave all of these for myself.”
“What?” Big Quinn asked in shock.
“Leave some liver and lungs for me,” said Godzilla in a small voice. “I love those.”
Big Quinn was even more shocked.
The pig’s head, hock, and tail, for Li Du, were delicious parts of the animal; even better than the meat itself.
Big Quinn was good at butchering animals. He started off from top to bottom; first the shoulder, a big chunk of meat with a unique shape, and also one of the finest parts.
Big Quinn rolled the meat using plastic wrap, saying, “This part of the meat is most suitable for barbecuing. Nice flavor and an equal ratio of fat and lean meat.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Turis said impatiently, wanting to eat it now.
“No, No,” Li Du said. “We have to keep it frozen first in case there’s parasites in it.”
Freezing food was one of the ways that Americans prevented parasites from growing. They didn’t mind eating meat that wasn’t fresh—they thought most foods could only be eaten after being handled with hygienic processes.
Next was the pork butt, the upper part of the shoulder. Its shape was like a cube but with a tremendous amount of meat—a very tempting part.
“If there’s anyone who likes to eat North Carolina shredded pork, this is the part you should use,” Big Quinn said.
Hans looked at the crowd and asked, “Hey, do you guys think North Carolina pork should be sliced with a knife, or torn with hands?”
This was a topic that Americans would argue over. Like in China, people would argue whether the curd should taste sweet or salty; whether tomato-fried eggs should have sugar or salt added; was the rice dumpling sweet or salty. While in America, they would quarrel over whether the North Carolina pork should be sliced or shredded.
Indeed, Hans had successfully made it a topic to talk about, and now people were arguing over it fiercely.
“I think we should use our hands to tear it. When I was in Windsor, the people were using this way to eat the pork—they’ll dip it in mustard too.”
“Of course they eat like that. People in Windsor are all peasants, peasants eat like that. If you’re in a restaurant at Charlotte, they will certainly slice the pork into smaller sizes with a knife, leaving some skin on it. That’s much better!”
“Yeah, we should use the slicing method too. In South Carolina, the people use a knife to slice it into thin pieces, not small chunks…”
When Big Quinn wanted to join in the discussion as well, Li Du patted his shoulder and said, “Hurry up and finish your work. Can’t you see Hans is buying some time for you?”
These people knew very well how delicious meat from a Black Pig could be. They were gathered here because they just wanted to taste the meat. Li Du and Big Quinn only wanted to enjoy the meat by themselves.
Big Quinn immediately focused on butchering the pork. Using his splendid technique, he rapidly cut all the parts, separating the bones and the meat. After half an hour, the pork was nothing like its original form.
The bones of a Berkshire pig were extremely dense. A 220-pound pork might look huge, but after removing the head, hocks, blood, bones and inner parts, it was only left with 65 pounds of meat!
This was the reason why Li Du didn’t want to share the meat in the party; he wanted to give it away to the others. Besides, 65 of meat would never be enough for those guys.
The treasure hunters could only curse both Li Du and Hans for being so stingy. Li Du then prepared some pork spare ribs, asked Big Quinn to grill it for them to eat, and kept the Berkshire meat hidden.
For him, there wasn’t much alluring about pork meat. Instead, it was seeing Big Quinn butchering the pork and the people surrounding him while watching him doing so that made him feel good.
He remembered that when he was a kid, during the Lunar New Year, people would butcher pork in his hometown. But now, the living conditions were much better, and there were no more butchering sessions, hence the fading of a New Year’s tradition.
