Saturday was Pig Processing Day at the Perizzolo compound. Chad got up at 6am and headed over to help out. They started off with 2 pigs: one 215 lbs, the other 385 lbs, and 125 kg in pork shoulders. Out of that they were able to make 29 sopresse, 950 sausages, 45 musetti, 55 salami, 12 capicolli and 1 pancetta! Talk about a heavy work load.
I got there just after lunch. They had finished making all the sopresse and salami, and were working on the musetti (or Cotechino).
Chad was in charge of stuffing the meat cannon with musetto goodness (if you like boiled pig parts).
Darios Dad & Godfather are in charge of tying up the musetti. That is a very senior position in the hierarchy of Pig Processing.
On the table next to the musetto station the men were grinding up some pork that had been seasoned in preparation for sausage stuffing.
I don’t know if these boys are really working very hard.
This is why you never throw anything out, because long after the kids are grown you can still use their baby bath tub to bathe pork products.
Vintage Love
Gina got the exciting task of soaking and reconstituting the dried intestines for the sausages!
Sausage Delight!
I’ve missed the last couple of Pig Processing Days, but I’m glad I made it out to this one. Next year I need to go even earlier so I can catch the butchering of it all. Darios Mom posted a picture of the pigs hanging in their garage waiting to be sliced an diced and it got me so excited! I definitely want to venture into butchering next, learning all the different cuts of meat and how to carve them.
Such a great tradition that is slowly being pass on through the generations!
I remember when my nonna and nonno would make sausages! Homemade is just so so so good. My nonna’s brother was a butcher, of course, what italian family wouldn’t be complete if at least one of the relatives wasn’t a butcher? One Easter we went over to their house probably a week or so before, and a lamb was hanging up in the garage, skin off and all. It was quite terrifying im sure, because I was probably 12 or 13 at the time. My brother actually went with them to the farm to pick out the lamb, he was 4 or 15 I guess. But, neither of us turned out to be vegetarians even after events like these. My nonno also loved the lambs brain. It always reminds me of the movie Big Fat Greek wedding, when he says he’s a vegetarian and she says “what do you mean you don’t eat no meat?! That’s ok, I make lamb” lol Italian and vegetarian don’t exactly go together.. Love the pics!!
Oh wow! What a process, it’s really cool that you guys do it all yourselves.