Why must the pig die?
At Museum Farm Karensminde, autumn is the time to prepare for winter.
It is the season to stock the pantry with smoked sausages and cured ham. One of the pigs is slaughtered, providing meat and bacon for the cold months ahead. The slaughtering and preparation of pork has become an autumn holiday tradition at Karensminde, forming part of the museum’s living history.
The fields and kitchen garden are cultivated as a piece of living history, showing how raw ingredients travel from soil to kitchen. But the story is not only about vegetables and grain. Meat was also an essential part of the diet – as it still is for many today.
When a pig is slaughtered during the autumn holiday, it is to demonstrate an important part of the lives and routines of our ancestors. It is a tangible way of understanding that food does not simply come from the supermarket, but from animals and land cared for and worked by people.
Hans Peter Festersen, farm manager at Museum Farm Karensminde, explains:
“Pigs were only slaughtered once a year. It was very rare, almost never, that cattle were slaughtered, as it was too costly. Pork, on the other hand, could be preserved for an entire year after slaughter. It was placed in brine and then smoked. Slaughter day itself was a festive occasion, because for dinner that evening, or the following day, you would have unsalted meat. The very best, however, was that for a few days you could enjoy black pudding or similar specialities. The bigger and fatter the pig, the better – because the fat worked so well with the salting process.”