Thursday, January 19, 2012

Smokehouse

There was a time, before paved roads and supermarkets, that every family raised a hog. It would be butchered when the weather turned cold, and the hams would be covered with salt and placed on a shelf in a smokehouse to cure. The cured meat would supply the family for the coming year. Now we buy sugar-cured hams at Kroger or WalMart, and the smokehouse, if it survived, is used to store the lawn mower.

5 comments:

  1. Such is progress?
    Not so much I think.

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  2. Sad, don't you think? And of course when there's a natural disaster, we can't take care of ourselves because we're so tied to the grid... love this shot.

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  3. Brings back memories of my Uncle Sherill's smokehouse. My parents would help and they would slaughter and dress two hogs. I know it was hard work for them, but it was mostly fun for the kids.

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  4. We used to slaughter hogs when I was a kid. Remember it well.

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  5. There used to be a 'meat house' on our farm -- for salt curing hams. No smoke house however.

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