Hog Butchering with Family and Friends

Pennsylvania has been having some chilly weather this winter. A few weeks ago, the lows were in the single digits and the highs were only in the teens! While many people grimace at the thought of frigid temperatures, these are exactly what are needed when butchering at home.

My father, Mark, has written a few articles describing his memories of butchering on the Hagenbuch farm in Montour County, PA where he grew up. In one of my favorite pieces, he discussed the process of butchering hogs while showing pictures of him as a boy helping out the adults. Other photographs in the article captured his cousins, Myron Cromis (b. 1918) and Harold Sechler (b. 1923), at work on several hogs. Wintertime butchering was, and still is, a necessary activity that provided food and fellowship for family, friends, and neighbors.

Family and friends gather to butcher at the Rathmells’ early January of 2001

Unlike my father, I was not raised on a farm. However, I was lucky enough to have family that butchered chickens, ducks, and hogs at various times over the years. The last butchering I attended was in early January of 2001. My dad described that particular day in one of his previous articles:

In 2001, we made arrangements to butcher two hogs with Dale and Lamar Rathmell who were members of my father-in-law’s (Reverend Roy A. Gutshall) congregation at Delaware Run Lutheran Church near Dewart, Pennsylvania. My wife Linda and our three children showed up at their farm very early on a January morning, and I got to relive the butchering days of my youth.

My children remember the smells, cold, and hard work of that day—especially my son Andrew and his accompanying friend Nathan Hoover, both of whom were about 20 years old. We did all the tasks associated with butchering: scalding, scraping, cutting lard and bacon, boiling the cracklins, and making puddin’ and scrapple.

While we worked, I commented to the Rathmell brothers that they sure had good equipment to work with. They told me that they had purchased all the equipment from a fellow near Limestoneville whose cousin had been a master butcher and had died a few years before. The seller’s name was Dad’s first cousin, Harold Sechler; and the master butcher was none other than cousin Myron Cromis. Most likely the butchering equipment I was using that day was the same equipment that had been used on our farm in Montour County in the 1950s and 60s. History comes full circle!

Linda (Gutshall) Hagenbuch, on the left, and Andy Bomboy, in the center, prepare the ground pork that will soon be piped into sausage cases.

In 2001, I was in college and had been studying photography for a few years. On the day of the butchering, I brought along my camera and a roll of film to document the process. Unfortunately, those images went missing for several decades. Then, a few weeks ago, I found them while sorting through a box of old papers.

I recall that the day was cold, perhaps in the 20s, and that there was snow on the ground. My good friend, Nathan Hoover, remembers riding with us—Dad, Mom, my sisters, and myself—in my dad’s new Ford truck. There was enough snow on the roads that my dad was able to use his four-wheel drive for the first time!

Mark Hagenbuch (right) cuts fatty skin. The man on the left may be Ralph Little.

Once at the Rathmells’ house, we headed to a large, block wall building with high ceilings. It had two large sliding doors and a gravel floor—the kind you don’t need to clean when you make a mess. There were a number of long tables, plenty of knives, a few large kettles, and other butchering equipment.

I believe my maternal grandfather, Roy A. Gutshall Jr. (b. 1920), stopped in briefly to see the operation. He did plenty of butchering in his day. Since the building was unheated, some people didn’t hang around too long. I remember my sisters heading into the house to warm up and help with lunch.

Looking at the pictures now, I can see there were many more people there than I thought. Several of them we cannot even identify. Of course, it makes sense that there would be a large group helping. Hog butchering is time intensive and takes an entire day to complete, depending upon the number of pigs to be processed.

Andy Bomboy holds down a hog as it bleeds out.

The hogs arrived in a trailer and everyone sprang into action. My father’s account of the day mentioned that two hogs were butchered. The photos actually reveal a total of four hanging in the building. Each hog was shot with a .22, and its throat cut so it could bleed out.

Mark Hagenbuch (left) and several other men scrap hair from a hog.

One by one, the hogs were lifted into a trough filled with hot water. This helped to loosen the hair on its skin. Chains under the pig were used to roll the carcass in the water and allowed every side to be scraped clean of hair. Hog scrapers are a unique tool, and my father has one that was owned by his maternal grandfather, Odis Guy Faus (b. 1899).

Hog scraper used by Odis Guy Faus

Next, the hogs were each carried into the block wall building. Meat hooks, on either side of a length of wood, pierced the the pigs’ back feet. This device separated the legs and permitted the carcass to be hoisted up using a chain and pulley.

Hogs that have been gutted and and halved

Once hung, the head and internal organs were removed. These were dropped into a large metal basin located under the carcass. Leaf fat and organs, such the liver and heart, were set aside. Looking at the below image, I can see that the pork livers were separated from the other organs and washed. While these could have been made into a puddin’, it seem likely they were frozen and eaten as is.

Pork livers in a steel bowl

The cleaned carcasses were cut in half and butchered into various cuts of meat: hams, ribs, loins, bellies, chops, shoulders, and more. These were placed on tables where people trimmed away excess fat and skin. Little went to waste. Small pieces of meat were kept and used to make ground pork, puddin’, and scrapple.

Left to right: Linda (Gutshall) Hagenbuch, Fred Bomboy, and Nathan Hoover trim off piece of meat.

The ground pork was seasoned and piped into sausage casings. Traditionally, the casings were made from cleaned intestines, although I believe we used store bought ones in 2001. Other pieces of meat and edible organs were boiled with seasonings in a large kettle. The meat from this was dipped out of the broth to create puddin’.

Dale Rathmell uses a meat grinder to prepare ground pork.

The remaining broth was used for scrapple. Cornmeal and buckwheat were added to the broth, and it thickened into a porridge. This was dipped into pans so it could set into scrapple. I remember making scrapple that day. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures of it.

Lamar Rathmell stirs a kettle while making puddin’ and scrapple.

Another kettle was for cooking cracklins. Pieces of fatty hog skin were heated in a kettle until the fat liquefied and deep fried the skin. The crispy skin was dipped out of the kettle and put into a press to squeeze out the fat. The liquid fat from the press and the kettle was placed into containers, cooled, and saved as lard. The crunchy cracklins were put into paper bags.

Some of the meat produced from butchering of four hogs

After a long day of butchering , I recall my family bringing home plenty of meat, along with a tub of lard and a bag full of cracklins. The latter two items really stick in my memory. One reason that might be is the lard made the best homemade french fries!

A pan of hog guts

Hog butchering is dirty, time-intensive work that is typically done in the frigid, midwinter season. It’s an activity that provided our earliest Hagenbuch ancestors with food and fellowship. Today, we simply visit the supermarket with its huge selection of pork roasts, bacon, sausage, and other meats. Hogs are still being butchered, albeit out of sight and by somebody else. For this reason, it is important that we know where our food comes from and experience what our relatives once did on the farm.