Fried Eggs

My father grew up in Calabria, Italy. That’s the toe of the boot. He came to Canada when he was 21, and before he did, he lived on a farm with his parents and seven siblings. Five boys and three girls. Their income was generated by the work they did on the farm. Among other farming tasks, they made salami that had to last them the whole year. Pigs were farmed and kept separate from the other animals. Two pigs were saved for the salami and the rest were sold for money. The chosen two for the salami had to be two years of age.

“The last six months before we killed the pigs, Nonna would feed them ciciari é ghiande so the meat would be really tasty,” my father tells me as he slouches on a red armchair with his feet on its ottoman. Ciciari é ghiande are chic peas and acorns.

“Nonna wouldn’t want anyone to look at it; she was worried it was a jinx, especially right before killing the pig. I would hear my mother saying, ‘Unné grasso abbastanza!’ so she would over feed them.” All the neighbors were in competition about how fat their pigs were. My sweet Nonna, so competitive and superstitious.

My father takes me through the morning of the pig slaughter, which his family calls the “Festa Du Purco.” Festa – meaning party – seems to be an ironic word for the event but when you’re about to prepare food to last until the next year, I guess it is some kind of celebration.

“On the morning of the day to kill the pigs, we get up really early around 12:30, 1 o’clock in the morning to fill the quadara. It takes six to seven hours with an open fire for it to reach a full boil.” Quadara is the term for pot in pure Calabrese dialect. “Around day break,” he continues, “we get help from the neighbors to gather the pig, tie ‘em up, lay it down on some hay, and we would kill it with a BIG knife.” They cut the throats, because they didn’t want the pig to die right away. My eyebrows lift in slight disgust at the torturous thought, but he explained that in order for the meat to be nice you needed to drain all the blood. It was a slow death for two reasons: first you want all the blood out of the meat, and second, you would use the blood for other things. NONE of the pig went to waste. “We used everything”. His eyes open wide and serious to emphasize the point.

“A lady with a big stick stood next to the pig and stirred all the blood that was draining into a pot so that it didn’t quaglia” Confusion falls upon my face over the word. My sister tells me that quaglia means coagulate. “We would hold the pig so it didn’t move. Oh man, it used to be brutal to hear them cry.” I interrupt and ask if the children were scared to watch the whole thing happen. I try to imagine my father as a child holding a fat pig that is slowly bleeding to death.

“I grew up with them, I had to feed them and clean them, I wasn’t scared, but when they were killed I didn’t wanna hear them crying so me and the other kids would go hide and cover our ears. But it was all natural for me. I used to love to skin them, all the hair would come off and the skin would be so clean.” I feel the satisfaction of peeling a thick layer of nail polish off my fingernail.

“And the anticipation of when all the food was ready to eat…” he slightly tilts his head back with joy. My mind’s eye sees my father as a sweet boy peeping over the table top salivating for a fresh plate of pasta with chunks of meat inside.

“We had to make sure the pig was dead, otherwise, when you put hot water to take the skin and hair off, a couple times I remember, the pigs started running like crazy and it took a few hours to gather them.” He laughs from his round belly at the thought, his shoulders rise and fall. “You put the feet down, the feet had to be in the hot water the longest to get the nails and hard parts off, in the maidda.” The maidda, which my father pronounces my-e-dra, is the largest pot that the pig sits in – easily confused with the quadara.

“You pour the hot water from the quadara and skin the ears and top, and with some help you flip it upside down and the under part is exposed. Then you take the nails of the feet off and make sure you take off all the hair. When the pig is all nice and clean, you put a hole on the ankle, catch the nerve and put a gammieddo (like a swirly hook) in it and hang the pig upside down in the shed. Then very carefully a lady with a big sporta (bushel) and a misale (tablecloth) inside it catches all the guts. The organs were separated from the intestines. When all that was out, the ladies would take the sporta to the river, and untangle all the intestines and wash them in the rushing water. While that was happening, the men would cut the head off and split the pig exactly in half, bring them inside on a table, get the head, open the mouth, put an orange in and put it on the window sill.

“I was used to it so I wasn’t scared,” my father tells me. The end of that day consisted of cooking up some liver and having a feast.

“The next day, the meat is cooled off and the pig was ready to be spazzunato (butchered). The rear legs would be left whole to make prosciutto; out of the four, two were for prosciutto and two for sopressata. You had to take off all the lard first, make them in strips three inches wide, and that would be hung for a couple days. We’d use that for grasso. (It’s like Crisco in case they didn’t have enough olive oil because sometimes the crop wasn’t that rich). The rest of the meat would all be cleaned, then take some fat off that wasn’t used for meat and spots of blood were removed.” I could smell the dead meat, cold and damp, the same way my basement smells every year when we make sausages. Except there is no dead pig in my basement, not a whole one at least.

“Everything was done by hand with knives, we didn’t have machines in those days,” he narrows his black and white brows. “Meat with blood was for liver sausage. Once all the meat was separated we use the cleaned maidda to mix paprika, salt, peppercorns, and chili peppers to taste. Same for sausage but instead of black pepper you’d put finnocchio (fennel seeds). Then we would use the small casings for the sausage and the big ones for the sopressata. To fill it you’d use the imbuti (funnel)…” my father pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes when he can’t think of the word. “Like a… like a funnel, and then you push with the big thumb. Then you hang them in the kitchen from the ceiling. To cure them in the morning we’d make a big fire to make some smoke, and then do that again in the evening. After that the capicolli and prosciutto was salted. They would stay three to four days in the salt and then washed with cold water and vinegar, and almost all covered with paprika. That and hot pepper was used so the mosche (bugs) would stay away. Then they were hung again. After two to three days you boiled all the lard to make grasso. That in itself was a huge thing to do because at the same time we’d boil all the bones and when it was all cooked there would be another big, BIG feast. The big Flintstone bones were amazing.” He smiles a wide smile. I laugh that my father even knows about the Flintstones.

“With the meat from the head we would make the gelatina, (head cheese, actually called suzu in calabrese). With the blood we’d make, what is it called…. sanguinaccio - boiled blood with chocolate, noce (walnuts), and cinnamon. Boiled and then filled into the vescica (bladder) and hung to dry. Then you cut it and eat it, and it was fuck’n delicious!” I mimic vomiting by filling my cheeks with air.

There is such pride in this Festa du Purco. I ask him what the best part is. He thinks back for a second, and I know he misses his father.

“When the meat was dry and ready, THAT was a moment of pride! Because some people’s didn’t come out good and they had to throw theirs away and they were screwed for the whole year.”

“Did that ever happen to your family?” I ask with concern – the thought of all that work going to waste is a nightmare.

“Oh no, but it did to Zia Carmella” his eyes are large and his voice low.

“And in those days you had to bring a filletto (piece of meat) to the doctor, or to the priest, and Zio Armando hated it. He wanted to kill my mother and father, always complaining, ‘Unné giusto! Pecchie!?‘ But some time after we stopped doing that; we got smart. We realized that we had to pay them anyways so why the hell do we have to give away our best meat?”

“Do you like telling me all this?” I ask my father with a slight grin. I can tell how much he likes to tell me about his life on the farm, about how hard he worked, the life they made for themselves.

“Yeah” and he nods his head as if to say “Of course, you’d be proud too if you did what I had to do.” He’s old now, my father. Sixty-one. He wants to sell his business and rest soon. To think of all he’s done, all those years ago, just a young boy tending the land. A life where a suffering pig is a thing to celebrate. Festa du Purco. To me, that means pride.