Lechon Or Why I am considering Vegetarianism

I watched a pig prepared for lechon two nights ago. It is a slow death encouraged by a quick and deep stab to the jugular. I would ordinarily say that the pig squealed its life away but that is what pigs do. Squeal. It was more of a horrific squeal from hell. A hoarse high pitched trembling sound of animal fear and pain. I could not watch the moment of murder but I heard a sudden forceful thud as Bai thrust the knife in the pig's throat. From the sound of skin hitting skin, I imagine that he plunged the blade in completely as is also evidenced by the size and shape of the entry mark.

When the squealing abated, I rested easier thinking the pig was out of its misery but twice more, horrific sounds emanated from the creature as the blood drained out of its body into a waiting cauldron. At first loud and fighting and then low and gurgling. As if her cries riled the remaining blood in her body. Then the gurgling stopped.

Mang Jesse and Allan then carried the pig to what I shall call the staging ground. Simply a small open area of the house where I normally sit, smoke and watch the beach but now covered with tarpaulin. The boys then poured boiling water over the sow and used a spoon to deftly shear off the hair.

With the same hands used to deal the death blow, Bais carefully and expertly cut the animal open. Using light strokes with surgical precision down the pig from the throat to her last teat. Burying the knife even deeper and with both hands, Bai then sliced through the bones. "Slice" is perhaps the wrong word. Too clean for the snapping and breaking of defiant bone. I stopped counting after the fifth cup of blood was ladled out of the body and I wondered if the smell of blood is the smell of life or the smell of death. Either way, it is not sweet. Jesse, apparently in charge of the blood collection casually dipped his fingers into the cauldron and then licked them the way you would taste spaghetti sauce or hot fudge. "A dog's blood is the best," he nonchalantly told Allan.