If it’s fall, it’s Chichironnes 

Chichironnes are a by-product of the old farmer’s almanac in the Southwest and in many other parts of the United States.  How the earth moves in and out of it’s seasons and how nature gives and takes according to it’s own calendar.  Autumn, Fall is the time that piglets, born in the spring, can be separated from Mom and the piglets and/or Mom can be sold or slaughtered.  Yep, slaughtered. 

How removed from reality are we?  We see nice packages in the store and don’t have to think about how it got there.  I was raised in south Louisiana and I remember visiting my cotton farmer Grandfather in Arcadia, in north Louisiana (yep, the Bonnie and Clyde Arcadia, Louisiana) and his cows, chickens and pigs.  In the fall, two posts were driven into the ground and wire strung between them like a clothes line to dry clothes outside.  A line of firewood was laid on the ground following the wire from post to post.  The fire was lit and once the initial smoke had blazed away, these strange looking clothes hangers appeared and sat hanging from the wire, above the fire, slowing twisting from the heat and any breeze.  Attached to the hanger frame was a strange looking thing.  It looked like a large X had been laid out. 

Actually it as a piglet, just weened, which had been beheaded, split from neck to navel, gutted, one chop broke the ribs on one side of the back bone and one chop broke the hip bone allowing the body to be spread open, laid flat on the hanger frame appearing as a large X.  After a splash of water, the X was hung up and blood was drained for a time.  Then, the frame was hung on the wire over the fire where it self basted as the heat melted fat, seared flesh and crisped skin.  There were sometimes ten or twelve hangers and, sometimes, they built two fire lines and had twenty hangers twirling. 

Word had spread among the neighbors which farm was slaughtering on which day and neighbor menfolk had come early this morning to help.  The womenfolk appeared later with covered dishes of heavenly light biscuits, macaroni and cheese, carrots floating in butter, green beans with salt pork, sliced peaches in juice and bowls of freshly whipped cream from that morning’s milking.  In my family, you had a choice of sweet or unsweet tea.  We were thought very liberal… 

My Grandfather was strict Southern Baptist who rolled his own cigarettes, when provoked swore like a sailor and who turned a blind eye to the mason jar of clear liquid which sometimes moved mysteriously amoungst the menfolk.  Granddady knew the old saying that when you had a car full of Baptists, you had four on the floor and a fifth under the seat. 

For some reason, in north Louisiana, this event was called a pig fry (even though they were technically roasting the pigs…)  In south Louisiana, this was called a Couchon de Lait (technically, milk pig or suckling pig and again, they roasted them).   Now, when they slaughtered a big pig and salt cured the meat and hams and fried up the skin and fat into cracklins that was called a pig roast.  I don’t know why. 

So, cracklins or chichironnes, it means the air is turning cool and crisp, pumpkins are ripening for rolling, chunking and pies and winter is just around the corner.

One Response to “If it’s Fall, it’s Chichironnes”