I can remember on cold January mornings when I was 5 to 12 years old seeing a half dozen hogs hanging on the farm. It was big doings, with water boiling, knives flashing, guts being stripped out for chitlins, "liver and lights" boiling with a lot of hot pepper, and 8 to 10 men and women making sausage, cutting chops, scalding and scraping, and my Mama making fresh brunswick stew with two or three of the hog heads. Other heads were boiled down to make "head cheese," or souse meat. Hams, sides, and shoulders were salted down and hung, along with link sausage, in a smokehouse similar to this 125 year-old example on my wife's family farm.
