 I'm standing outside a cowshed with half a dozen men. The drizzle is light but cold. It is blown onto our faces by a wind that comes and goes, the kind of weather you get on the Yorkshire Moors that makes you feel a bit sorry for the sheep. I am smoking a cigarette, like several others in our masculine bunch, although in my case it's nerves rather than a bad habit that have made me reach for the nicotine. We're all standing just far enough back so that our boots don't get spattered with blood.
I am in Galicia, the agricultural heartland of 'Green Spain', a cool thousand kilometres away from Malaga and the sun-kissed costas. It's the 11th of November, Saint Martin's Day, and I'm at a sacrificio, a pig slaughter. I will watch a further six pigs die this morning. “Every pig has its St Martin's Day,” goes the Spanish expression. And in Galicia, there are an awful lot of pigs.
Traditionally, all rural families here had a ‘house pig'. Poverty was so severe that the long, hard winter could only be survived with the help of the family porker, who in late autumn would lay down his life for the greater good. From salt-cured snout to curly tail, absolutely everything was for the pot, everything but the squeal.
These days most Galicians don't need to gnaw on a boiled pig's ear for sustenance, but many of them still do. Food is a great way of celebrating one's culture and history, and the importance of pork continues undiminished here, especially in the winter. As the cold season approaches, every butcher's shop window is festooned with dried pig faces and other porky remnants (hocks, ears, trotters). And from St Martin's Day, traditionally the beginning of the slaughter season, until Carnival, traditionally the end, cocido is the number one meal of Galicians, both at home and in restaurants.
Cocido, which simply means ‘cooked’, is a staple stew throughout Spain. But Galicia's version is particularly rustic: take a pot the size of an immersion tank, add a few bucketfuls of water, a sack of potatoes, three or four yards of chorizo sausage, a bushel of chickpeas, plus several pigs (chunked). Boil the whole thing up, then leave it on a low flame until next week. Sometime around Thursday, add your greens.
Read the full article in our November 2009 issue. |
