People these days seem to be focused on where their food comes from. All I'm going to say is be careful what you ask for. For some background, when the Brumfield Homestead, that of my beloved grandparents Thomas Colter "T. C." and Emma Jenkins Brumfield, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014, it was recognized as an exceptional intact example of an early Washington Parish farmstead, homesteaded by my great-grandfather Thomas Hezekiah Brumfield in 1893. A rarity in Washington Parish, it maintained the representative structures of a farm which operated from 1887 to 1975.
The Brumfield Homestead was listed on the Register, under both Criteria A and C, significance for agriculture and architecture, respectively. And one of the several unaltered contributing outbuildings, which reveal the homestead's humble beginning, is the smokehouse dating to the early twentieth century. This framed outbuilding which employs rough sawn boards, some of which are exceptionally wide at twelve inches in width, for support is situated directly behind the farmhouse. The main part of the structure is enclosed and was used for curing and smoking pork, from hogs on the farmstead. Its interior, which features a dirt floor, is accessible by a raised door with a handmade wooden latch located on the northern side of the smokehouse.
My mother Margie Nell Brumfield Ellzey often reminisced of the country smoked ham and bacon from pork cured in the smokehouse, but she neglected to tell me how it was derived. Momma probably took into account my weak stomach. But no such accommodation was made in her first cousin's memoir - "Recollections of T.C.W. Magee, D.D. S. Tulane University Dental School 1922-1927." Yet, I couldn't stop reading. My curiosity kindled some courage, such that I was able to get through the graphic account.
Digressing, this reminded me of an unfortunate occasion when my then-college-age daughter read, by mistake, unkind correspondence meant for me just after my mother died. Checking my e-mail at my request, Betsy was aghast as she read the missive aloud, while I was driving on the Causeway. Sensing the situation, I interrupted, instructing Betsy to stop reading it. Carrying on, she replied, "But Mama I can't." And so it was, for me, with the following passage, albeit of a totally different nature, from Dr. T. C. W.'s memoir.
Picking up with his depiction, related to the source of pork:
"Illustration:
The water is tested for temperature by an experienced person so that it will not be too hot and 'set' the hair and make it difficult to remove. Two good men would douse the animal in, turning from side to side, then changing ends and all the time testing the ease with which the hair will slip or pull out. When satisfied, the animal is placed on boards or a bench and scraped with a butcher knife until thoroughly clean after the bulk of hair has been plucked off by the handsful. The animal is rinsed and a final thorough scraping with knives leaves it gleaming white. Next the skin is slit on the back of the hind legs from the heels of the hoofs to the hocks or first joint and the heel strings or tendons are laid bare but not severed. A gimlet, which is a stout stick sharpened on both ends, is inserted behind the tendons of the legs and placed over the horizontal bar of a scaffold. Next the porker is opened from end to end on the dorsal side and the innards removed. Generally a stick or corn cob four to six inches long is placed in the mouth to keep it open. Several buckets of cold fresh water were doused in the ham area and used to rinse the carcass out well on the inside as it ran on through and out of the opened mouth. The dressed animal is left suspended head down until thoroughly drained and dry.
Preceding all this animal was usually killed by shooting with a 22 caliber rifle or stunned with a club ax also called pole ax. This type ax had a blunt head on top side and a cutting blade below the eye where a hickory handled was inserted.
Then the animal was bled by a deep puncture from a long bladed knife referred to as a butcher knife which entered the throat in front of the forelegs and directed back to the heart of large blood vessels. This kept the meat from retaining too much blood.
After the dressed animal had been chilled, usually by holding overnight, it was opened as widely as possible by one or more persons. The person that was to dismember took a sharp ax, hatchet or hand ax, and cut the ribs loose from the back bone from end to end and the entire of it removed. The flesh was cut through, dividing the carcass into two sides of meat. Next cut further into hams, shoulders, feet, sides with ribs called middlings and tail piece. Liver, lights (lungs), brains and intestines were all saved and rinsed or cleaned. The intestines were turned inside out, scraped, rewashed several times and either cut up and fried as chitterlings or stuffed as sausage with some of lean and fat meat ground up and seasoned."
And with that I bid you adieu, for another week.
