Sisters in the Deep Forest Valley: Many Fun Things

Chapter 22 Burning and Dissecting a Wild Boar

Lin Chun pondered for a moment and said:

"It's so big, it's not safe to carry it in a basket with blood dripping all the way. Let's treat it here before carrying it back. Let's be quick and keep an eye on our surroundings."

"Drain its blood first." Lin Chunyi went around behind the wild boar and made a cut in front of its neck, causing blood to splatter all over the ground.

After the blood was drained, Lin Chunyi faced another dilemma.

"How do we remove the pig bristles? We didn't bring a pot, so we can't boil water."

"Then let's burn it!"

Lin Lanshan said she once read a book about a place where there was a way of cooking pig called "fire-roasted pig".

It involves placing the whole pig in a pile of dry straw and burning it. After scraping and washing away the black ash, the skin layer can still be eaten immediately; it's called "raw skin."

So they used their hands and knives to dig a shallow pit about the length of a wild boar, and then placed some stones on both sides of the pit.

In October, the grass in the mountains begins to turn yellow and wither.

They tied the wild boar's front and hind legs together.

Lin Chunyi cut down a long tree trunk and threaded it through the wild boar. The two of them worked together to lift the wild boar over and placed it over the pit.

They then brought in many dry branches and grass, threw them into the pit, covered it with a thick layer of dry grass, and set it on fire.

The entire wild boar was engulfed in flames.

After a while, the fire subsided, and they continued to throw branches and dry grass into the pit and onto the wild boar.

Every now and then, the two of them would lift the tree trunk and turn the wild boar around to make the fire burn more evenly.

The fire burned for almost half an hour, until the wild boar was charred black and the fire went out.

"Hot...hot hot hot hot...whoosh, whoosh whoosh whoosh," the two men shook their hands back and forth as they were burned, while quickly scraping off a layer of black ash from the pigskin with a knife.

After scraping off the black ash, the pigskin was a golden brown. Lin Lanshan smelled the roasted pork and felt a little hungry.

"Sis, why don't we try this raw skin? It should be pretty good."

Lin Chunyi had never heard of this way of eating before, but the aroma was indeed quite tempting, and she wanted to try it...

"Other people's roasted pork must be made from very high-quality pigs. Wild boars definitely can't meet that standard. Be careful not to get diarrhea if you eat too much. Just cut off a little bit and try it."

Lin Lanshan didn't even use a knife; she simply used her hands to make a cut in the pigskin.

With one tear, she got a piece of pigskin. She gave half to her sister and took a bite herself.

Lin Chunyi smelled the unique aroma of the roasted pork, took a bite, and found it to be chewy and springy.

"It's pretty tasty, but it has a slightly gamey smell, probably because it's not from a domestic pig. Okay, let's cook the rest properly and eat it."

Since she didn't bring her cleaver, she took out a wood-chopping knife from her spatial storage. She gestured left and right, unsure where to begin.

Lin Lanshan took the knife from her sister's hand and said:

"I come."

I mentally prepared myself: my hands are still ice-cold from killing fish, what's killing a pig?

"call……"

Recalling the process of slaughtering a pig in her mind, she made a smooth, silky cut down from the neck incision.

Lin Chunyi was dumbfounded.

"When did you secretly go and learn how to slaughter pigs?"

Lin Lanshan recalled that Chinese New Year...

Feeling frustrated, she said to her sister:

"That was a long time ago. I said okay... but don't pinch my cheeks."

Lin Chunyi nodded.

Unfortunately, there were no benches or melons, so I grabbed a handful of jujubes and waited.

"The year I had winter break after my first year of junior high, for some reason, our school teachers assigned folk customs as homework. I was incredibly lucky! I drew the assignments of slaughtering a pig for the New Year and making tofu!"

Lin Lanshan said through gritted teeth.

"The assignment required me to describe in detail the process of slaughtering the pig for the New Year, and to provide photographic evidence..."

"Back then, we were studying in Qincheng Prison. Who would slaughter a pig for the New Year in their city house? So, I spent several days watching tons of complete pig slaughtering videos. I also went to the market early every morning to find stalls where people were butchering pork and took tons of photos, then edited them later. Finally, I submitted my pig slaughtering assignment!"

As he spoke, he emptied the wild boar's internal organs and chopped off its head. Then he chopped the bones, cutting the boar in half.

Next, cut the four pig legs apart, chop them off, and separate the shank and leg meat.

Cut off the two ribs, and finally divide the wild boar meat into several large pieces.

Lin Lanshan recalled that she was only in the first year of junior high school. At such a young age, she had to watch videos of pigs being slaughtered every day and take pictures of how the pork was cut. It all brought tears to her eyes when she thought about it...

The entire process of slaughtering the pig is still vividly etched in my mind; I can't forget it at all.

"You were in seventh grade? How come I didn't know that?"

Lin Lanshan snorted coldly and said:

"Of course you wouldn't know. You were so engrossed in the joy of traveling with your new friends from your new school. You had no idea you had a younger sister who watched pigs being slaughtered every day..."

"Cough, cough...that's all in the past..."

Lin Chunyi glanced sympathetically at her sister who was butchering pork. Everything was understood without a word.

She suddenly remembered something...

"You just said your previous assignments involved slaughtering a pig for the New Year and what was it again?"

Lin Lanshan's memories were interrupted, and she paused for a moment before remembering.

"Making tofu?"

Lin Chunyi laughed heartily twice.

"My dear sister! So you've gone to the deep mountains to find Xi Shi!"

???

“We have so many soybeans in our cellar, why don’t you take out some tofu to eat sometime?”

Lin Lanshan almost dropped the knife in her hand...

"Lin Chunyi! You are so cruel!"

"I'm telling you how tough things were for me back then. You don't pity me, fine, but you actually want me to grind tofu? You can't use the production team's donkey like that! Do you even remember I was just a little kid?!"

"You're making it sound so easy..."

Lin Chunyi patted her younger sister's shoulder solemnly twice and sighed:

"Little sister, a great responsibility is about to be entrusted to you, you must seize it."

I can't handle it...

This is really hard for me to handle!

"Sister, what should we do with these internal organs?"

Lin Chunyi looked at the pig heart, pig liver, pig intestines, and other things that her sister had taken out and thrown on the ground...

"Wild boars naturally have a stronger gamey smell than domestic pigs, especially their internal organs. They're too difficult to process. Let's feed them to the fish in the water. We'll eat the fish then, so it won't be a loss."

After processing and removing the internal organs, the wild boar meat weighs only about 80 or 90 pounds.

They put the jujubes back into their baskets and put the divided wild boar meat into their storage space.

"Sis, I remember there are two chestnut trees on the outskirts. They should be ripe by now."

"Go and have a look."

They went around to a grove and saw two chestnut trees, some of which had not yet cracked open.

They planned to check the traps in a couple of days and pick some chestnuts while they were at it.

Chestnuts are small, with a layer of spiky shells. Before the shells crack open, they look like little green spiky balls hanging on the tree.

This place is close to the deep mountains, so no one has ever discovered it or come to pick the fruit.

When they got home, they took out all the wild boar meat and filled the kitchen table.

"Sister, there's so much wild boar meat, how are we going to prepare it? We can't fit it all in our storage space."