November 9 “Some Pig” – E.B. White

I remember being told once about a man who drove up to a farm, and saw a three-legged pig run across the yard by the barn. The man asked the farmer about the pig.

“That’s my lucky pig” said the farmer. “Once, the barn started on fire, and the pig woke me up so I could get all the animals out, and put out the fire. Another time, my son fell in the pond, and the pig grabbed a long stick in his mouth. He helped pull my son out. Another time, I was plowing the north field, and the tractor flipped over on the hill-trapped me under it. That pig came over and grabbed my belt in his mouth, and pulled me out. He saved me, my son, and my barn ”

“Wow, that sure is a lucky pig,” said the man. Why does he only have three legs?”

A pig that special, you don’t eat all at once,” said the farmer.

Everyone has also heard of “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White. Wilbur the pig was destined to be eaten, but Charlotte the spider, spun some webs with words about him. She saved Wilbur. Not as many people are familiar with similar pig story written several decades before.

I have “Dancing Tom” by Elizabeth Coatsworth, published 1939.

This story is about a family of settlers that moved out West. The little girl had a baby pig-Tom. Tom learned to dance to entertain everyone, and that temporarily saved Tom from being eaten. One day the girl’s baby brother ran away from the log cabin, and was about to be bitten by a rattlesnake. Tom that dancing pig did a pig jig on top of the snake, and killed it. Tom was saved from being eaten for the rest of his life.

Why so many stories about eating pigs? November 9th is National Scrapple Day. Scrapple is made with pig parts (scraps and trimmings) along with corn meal, flour, and spices. It is then fried up into thin squares.

Let me look into my cookbooks and see if I have anything on scrapple. In the 1329 page book “The Wise Encyclopedia of Cookery” by Wm. H. Wise and Co. published in 1949, I found something.

In between Cranberry Pork Chops and Pig’s Knuckles Dinner, I find Philadelphia Scrapple. They use lean pork and pork liver simmered before grinding up and mixed with spices and corn meal and cooked again, then put in a bread pan to cool. Then sliced and fried.

I found a bunch of pig information in “Home Pork Production” by John Smedley, published in 1943 by Orange Judd Co. This book has just about everything one would need to know about how to breed, feed, and succeed in raising pigs.

This book tells of scrapple that should be made from good fresh pork and using hocks and waste pieces during butchering time. Should be cooked until bones fall from the meat, then skin and waste removed and fat skimmed off. Then spices and corn meal cooked until thick enough for stirring spoon to stand up stiffly on own. Then poured into pan and allowed to cool. Can be kept safely for several weeks.

To eat, one turns it out of pan and after slicing thinly, have it fried on both sides. The author states that “When scrapple is just right, it is one of the most delicious types of farm cookery ever invented in a hungry world.“

There is also a handwritten scrapple recipe in the back of the book. That one is similar to the rest, but it only uses ham hocks cooked down. After scrapple, the book then goes on to explain how to can pork in glass jars. My grandmother (my Dad’s mom) told me of during butchering season, when she was a child, her mom canning pork. They lived deep in the mountains of Tennessee. My mom grew up on a farm in Galesburg, Il. They raised pigs for a long time. She was familiar with, and happy with, fried scrapple.

Why don’t pigs eat cake? They are opposed to bacon.

A man goes to a movie theater and notices a pig sitting next to him.
“Are you a pig?” asked the man, surprised.
“Yes, I am.”
“What are you doing at the movies?”
The pig replied, “Well, I liked the book.”

I hope you enjoyed my pig books, as well. Thanks for reading.