The Reserves of the Poor – Pig Slaughter in Sant’Oliva

Rachel Decorte
Feb 19, 2017
3 min read

On a chilly, misty morning in late January, you can begin to hear the last cries of pigs being pulled out of their pens across a quiet valley…. The fire is burning strong under a weathered oil drum, filled with water, awaiting to reach its boiling point. Knives are sharpened and tools are prepared for what is about to unfold in the early hours of the morning...

A tradition passed on through generations, pigs are slaughter yearly in the Italian countryside of Lazio during the winter season as a means of producing sausages and the delicious Italian cured meats we all know well. During the 2nd world war, Italy was hit with extremely hard times were food was scarce and rationed down to the last crumb. This tradition was known as ‘la Reserve dei Poveri’ translated to the ‘Reserves of the poor’ as one pig could supply a whole family with food up to a whole year if prepared and cured properly.

Last year was the first time I had the opportunity to experience such a highly respected tradition… and although at first I was nervous about how I might feel about the whole ordeal, in the end I had a completely different outlook on what I witnessed and with that, a deeper understanding into the Italian culture.

The day started with the men preparing the fire and all the necessary equipment, while the women were inside preparing coffee and freshly baked sweets for breakfast. It usually goes without saying that if you have been asked to help out with the slaughtering of a pig, you can expect to get shouted a delicious lunch and that help returned back to you when it’s your time round, which seems fair as there is a lot of work involved.

When everything was ready, the pig was pulled out of its pen by ropes and humanely killed using an air-pressured pistol straight through the brain. To make blood sausages, the pig's neck is sometimes slit to collect blood, which is used later in the sausage making process a few days later. The animal was then lifted onto a table where boiling water was poured onto the skin to loosen the pig’s coarse hair. Hessian bags were laid over the pig’s body to disperse the hot water evenly and to keep the temperature at a constant. The men used knives and actual razors to strip off all the hair, leaving only the pig's pink, bare skin.

A tractor was then used to lift the pig up by it's Achilles tendons so it could be cut down the middle to retrieve all the internal organs. A delicate piece of meat was taken from the pigs belly and given to the women to be prepared for lunch. The pig was cleaned and dissected still leaving the external bulk of muscles intact. Then, the meat needed to be hung for 2 days in an enclosed cool environment to age, minimising the amount of blood still left inside the tissue…

Traditionally in this region, there is one dish that is typically always eaten when you have people over to kill your pig… It consists of sautéed broccoletti (which is like broccolini but it has a more bitter taste), pickled red capsicums in vinegar (these are usually made in the summertime and take about 2-3 months before they are ready) and lastly… the melt in your mouth pork that has been shimmering for 1-2 hours in white wine… the combination of the three is just incredible, appealing to every taste bud. The bitterness of the broccoletti paired with the sourness of the capsicums alongside the sweetness of the freshly cut meat is something I can’t even put into words… wow!

Although this day represented the killing of an animal, the care and dedication put towards looking after it for 2 years to then see the coming together of friends and family to work side by side is really quiet moving. A tradition carried down from father to son, from mothers to daughters and the passing of the torch as grandparents look on, it’s about the connections between land, animal, food and man that made this experience so special.