At one time here in the Lunigiana, butchering was a critical mission. You needed food to get you through the winter without any refrigeration other than the cooling temperatures of the season. You killed your pig and you preserved a good deal of it as prosciutto, salami and other products that fall under the category of salumi.

My neighbor Armando still follows the old tradition. The pig he sacrifices in December yields prize winning salame Toscana most years, and he makes great lardo and Culatello as well (the inner muscle of the ham or prosciutto).

I was able to watch and take pictures this year. Of course, I labored thus after an offer to “help” with the whole deal. The butcher, Giovanni, really didn’t seem to need any help, leaving me to my own devices, which included a still camera and video camera.

It took roughly 2 and a half hours to totally break down the pig into pieces that would sit overnight, including processing the intestines into roughly cleaned sausage casings. The next day, early in the morning, the pig was further broken down, some of the meat being ground for the salame tascana, mortadella, and sausage and stuffed into the cleaned intestines. That took the whole morning. By noon we sat down to a pig feast while the preserved meats were hanging handsomely.

I’ve prepared a slide show of the process used to break down the pig in the field. You might want to take a look if you don’t get physically ill at the sight of an animal being processed for food: Tuscany Pig Butchering