What is the custom of killing pigs in rural areas?

The busiest time in the countryside is closed for several years, and the farm work that has been busy for a year can be temporarily put down, and those who go out to work are all back. Find a sunny day in winter, please invite a pig butcher in advance, please help catch pigs, chop dry firewood, kill the big fat pigs in the pigsty, and celebrate the New Year with great prosperity.

On the day of killing pigs, you must inform your neighbors and relatives in the village, not necessarily to help catch pigs, but more to express your gratitude, and you have been helped by the villagers for a year. On this day, family members have to get up early, burn a large pot of boiling water, and there must be large pieces of firewood in the stove. In the cold weather of March 9, guests can't do without a fire. Don't rush, the pig butcher and the pig catcher came early, lifted the wooden basin, unloaded the door panel, looked for the rope, and when they were ready, they should tie the fat pig in the pigsty. The pig seems to know that he is doomed, but he always struggles desperately, and he will not give up until he is covered in pig shit and slowly exhausted. Pig-slayers are decades of craftsmanship, but they didn't suffer much from a knife. They scalded their hair with boiling water, shaved their hair with an iron scraper, and cleaned up after three times, five times and two times. This is the time to show the craftsmanship of pig-slayers.

seemingly casual segmentation is indeed a profound experience. I divide the whole pig beautifully like an expert, and then cut off a piece of fresh meat with fat and thin bones and cook it in the kitchen. This is the main course of the pig killing banquet. I will not deliberately cut the top meat in the back seat, which will make my family feel distressed, nor will I cut the meat on the pig's stomach, which will make people laugh at my family. It must make my family face, and the guests have enough to eat without wasting.

In winter, vegetables are very monotonous in rural areas, and Chinese cabbage and radish are the protagonists of vegetables on the table. Radish must be used for stewing pig soup, which is also the most important dish on the table; Lean bones, fat lumps, half-fat and half-thin should be available, and meat should account for more than half. Let all the guests eat and drink well. Steamed pork must be served with sugar, which means that life is sweet. A table of New Year's pig rice symbolizes that the New Year is coming, and it also deepens the feelings of the neighborhood.

After the guests left, the host family was not so free, curing pork, roasting pig's trotters and refining lard. The deepest and most delicious bite in my memory is the golden crispy lard residue. A piece of lard residue just out of the pot was crunchy and chewed in my mouth, with a fragrant mouth and oily mouth. On the night of Lunar New Year's Eve, jiaozi, who chopped the stuffing with oil residue, was my most unforgettable bite. After the lard residue was made into dumpling stuffing, it was not as crisp as before. It was soaked in jiaozi soup, and it was a bit greasy. Half a bite of jiaozi was slowly full of happiness, and it was full of the flavor of the year.