Slice of Life

By Peter Gordon - February 2008

Matanza in Escatron

On 1st February Michael and I flew to Zaragoza, Spain, to take part in an event I’ve been anticipating for years: the matanza, an ancient Spanish gastronomic tradition. We were hoping to butcher a pig, make chorizo and longaniza, and generally have a lovely time with an old friend and his family. Once we arrived in Zaragoza I realised why I love Spain so much – there’s something about the food, wine, people and climate that really appeals to me. However, looking from the plane it was the most desolate approach to any airfield I’d been to. Barren, dry, grey and pale tan in colour, the landscape was a little too moon-like for me, but then the province of Aragon isn’t know for it’s lushness.

We joined Fernando (Nando) and his family, and a constantly changing cast of their friends at this ritual, which still takes place all over Spain, in one form or another, between November and February. His family comes from a village with the strangely futuristic name of Escatron. It was once a thriving place, but sadly, it’s now in decline as the youngsters move off to larger cities to start a life, while the older residents simply get older. We stayed at the beautifully renovated Monasterio de Rueda, across the river from the village and it gave a hint of the energies now being directed into the area. This imposing ex-Cisterian monastery, first established over 900 years ago, is in the process of being restored and nestles besides the Ebro river.

The matanza is an old tradition: a pig is slaughtered and then parts of it are preserved for future use or eaten fresh during indulgent feasting over the following days. Its blood is drained to make morcilla (mixed with rice or grains to produce blood sausage); the loins (lomo), shoulders (paletta) and legs (Jamon) are mostly cured, and the remaining bits and pieces are either grilled for meals, or minced to produce chorizo, longaniza or botifarra. The head, snout, ears, knuckles and stomach are used to make a redolent stew called callos (pronounced kai-yoss), and the skin is deep-fried till crisply chewy and served as a snack.

Before sunrise, a dozen of us assembled at the family home. The vast internal courtyard had a fire burning all weekend, which had the welcome dual purpose of fending off the winter chill, and often being used to barbecue the various slabs of meat and sausages that we produced. Nando’s diminutive Aunt Cari and her husband José were in charge of the butchery ‘department’, while various cousins and his mother Emerita controlled the chorizo stuffing, hanging and sustenance departments. Due to a recent EU ruling, we weren’t able to kill our own pig and bleed it, and hence we couldn’t make morcilla.

To get over that disappointment I ate a plate of piping hot sugar-doused torijas (similar to French toast) and sipped on the local red wine from a communal pouch. Thus warmed, Michael and I, along with Nando and his brothers Antonio and Javier walked to the local butcher in the early morning darkness to collect the pig, which had been cut in half lengthways down the spine. The brothers carried the two halves back home, draped over their shoulders like two barbaric bagpipes.

The carcass was hung from two hooks in the courtyard and then swiftly and expertly portioned into the major limbs and joints by Uncle José. I was assigned the role of de-boning the legs and shoulders alongside an ex-butcher friend of the family. It was decided that we wouldn’t salt and cure them to make Jamon or paletta, so we cut them into smaller bits. I was also given the task of taking the rind off the belly (to be deep-fried) and then slicing the meat into pieces small enough to go through the hand mincer. Most of the fat was removed from the meat and minced separately. All of this mincing took a varied crew quite a few hours to complete, as it’s hard work. I think you’d be surprised at how much meat there is on a single pig.

As the sun rose the amount of helping hands increased. At one point I looked up from my butchers block and we were 24 strong in the courtyard, employed in various roles from fire-stokers and meat mincers through to mince mixers and cider pourers. All under the ever-watchful eyes of Nando’s mother and Aunt Cari. The delicious still cider had arrived, courtesy of a couple from St Sebastian who poured small amounts of it from a height into glasses to give it a pleasing fizz.

Once the pig had been reduced to mere bones and pieces of meat, most of the bones were mixed with the callos ingredients. Aunt Cari had expertly cleavered the head in half after chopping the snout off and placed in a huge cauldron of water on the interior open fire. They simmered for several hours before having freshly-ground almonds added, which had been taken out of their shells that morning, to produce a rich, chewy, gelatinous stew. I have to confess that callos verges on being texturally challenging – but it’s ultimately quite fabulous. The ribs were chopped into small pieces and put aside for the following day’s rice dish, and sausage skins, the intestines, were rinsed.

While we chopped, sliced and minced outside, the team inside were making two types of ‘sausage’ – chorizo and longaniza. They mixed lean beef mince with the minced pork and fat, then either seasoned it with pimenton (smoked paprika) and dried garlic for the chorizo, or with cinnamon and cloves for the longaniza.

I ingratiated myself to a place at the sausage-tying table, where I learnt to seal the newly formed 50cm long sausages at both ends with a sneaky little twist of string. Having proved expert with this chore (sealing 20 sausages) Michael and I then took control of the 50 year old, manual sausage stuffing machine. We filled its hollow tube with the sausage mix, then wound its handle to force the meat through a nozzle, which we’d wrapped with an intestine. As the mixture was forced out, it filled the intestine and before you knew it, you had a fresh chorizo in your hand. These were tied, then hung from a rack in the house’s second kitchen, previously the pig pen. In all, we made about 70 of each sausage.

The fabulous, raucous dinner that night comprised salad, chorizo, butcher-made morcilla and Jamon Serrano followed by boozy espresso (carajillo). Breakfast on Sunday was churros and thick hot chocolate, followed by an amazing rice dish, more like a risotto than paella. It was made from the pork rib pieces, rabbit, snails, wild mountain mushrooms, artichokes, potato and vegetables, which was cooked by Javier and a friend. They told me that in Spain all large feasts are usually cooked by the men, while at home meals are prepared by the women. It was fantastic to be immersed in a culture where everyone seemed capable of cooking.

Over the weekend, an ever-changing group of 80+ people had shared meals together, all at a hugely long table, and almost all based on the one pig we’d butchered ourselves. It was an Olympian, Spanish repast that felt like it was from another era, but remains a tradition that I’m pleased isn’t on the way out just yet.

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