Pig Butt

Growing up on the farm, I got used to a lot of things that most people might consider repulsive: walking barefoot in the "mud", scraping cow poop off the milking parlor walls, having our freezer routinely stocked with beef, pork, and chicken from the farm, as well as venison, bear, squirrel, rabbit, and a variety of other wild game (and sometimes road kill - come to think of it, sometimes the venison was road kill).

Remember my post, Fragrant Memories? There were lots of "delicious" smells on the farm, too, that I still consider comforting, even though they may cause others to vomit.



I went shopping with my kids the other day. When they were little, they lived under the innocent delusion that beef, pork & chicken came from the Meat Fairy and not real animals, despite the fact that chicken doesn't have a nice euphemism for the meat that comes from the animal, like "pork" or "beef". But they gradually started asking questions, and I answered them as delicately as I could, so as not to force my children to become immediate vegetarians. (I could NOT support that habit, since I personally am a meat-a-holic.)

Anyway, when I took the kiddos shopping, I picked up a ham that was reduced in price. My children took no time in noticing that the ham came from the "butt portion". When they asked why it said, "butt", I'm sure they were hoping for a nice, reasonable explanation that didn't involve pig anatomy, but I bluntly told them, "because it's the butt of the pig." There was no more delicate way to explain it, so I left it at that.

A few days later, 5-year-old asked me, "Mom, when are you going to cook Pig Butt for dinner? Because I don't think I'm going to eat dinner that day."