counterclockwise

My landlady’s pig recently had a litter. This is her first - only two piglets, which is a little bit of a let down for the family. Pigs are expensive to raise, and for a sow to justify her boundless appetite, she needs to keep the family ankle deep in pint-sized porkers. But these two (a big male and a slightly runty female) are growing fast and should be ready for sale in a few weeks and the barbeque pit in a few months.

Although pigs will continue to put on weight until they get too massive to stand, the Paraguayan tradition is to roast them luau-style just as soon as they get big enough to feed everyone at your next party. Traditionally, there was never any good reason to grow them up to the bacon-producing boulder size that US butchers prefer. The power lines to Tacuatí are younger than I am by several years and the lights sometimes go out for freezer-liquifying days a time. So frozen meat hasn’t quite caught on out here. And this hot, swampy climate doesn’t lend itself well to curing and smoking processes. So for all that Paraguayans do love pork, you won’t meet very many connoisseurs of chops, ham, and bacon.

The Guaraní word of the day is kamby, meaning milk. These kure’i sure know their business, and that business is kamby.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 18th, 2009 at 9:24 am and is filed under Guaraní, Pictures, Peace Corps Paraguay. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.