Pig, noun

An omnivorous domesticated hoofed mammal with sparse bristly hair and a flat snout for rooting in the soil, kept for its meat. Here, pretty much every household has at least one pig, fattened with maize, wheat and general-leftover broth for about a year. Note that industrial fattening takes about 3 months now, and new orientations of taste with health concerns have definitely changed how pigs should be in other regions of Europe (and even in the big farms here, e.g. maximum of 12% fat), those bred in individual households should have a proportion of at least 40% fat. They should not lack ‘sunca’, the subcutaneous fat that will be turned into ‘untura’ (Lux: Schmalz – is there a special word in English?… I am tempted to say ‘blubber’ but I am sure that’s only for sea mammals’ fat…). Over a thousand pigs will be ‘cut’ from now until Christmas in the village. The black market in a neighbouring town is flourishing in this period of the year, unhampered by a smiling vet inspector (encountered in a different part of the official part of the market) who probably gets his own Christmas feast-pig from there. You can get pigs quite cheaply there (about €90 for a carcass with 120 kg meat, dead weight). There are all kinds of colourful pigs there, because people here have old breeds, not the ‘modern’ hybrids recommended/prescribed for industrial farming. I like colourful pigs. There was one black pig with a lot of hair on the market screaming as if it was being slaughtered already, because someone had tied it with its hind leg to the back of the truck, and it really did not like that, and wanted to escape. The vet inspector used to go and threaten with fines, in the summer, making the market dissociate at once in a cloudy moment of dust and noise, everyone getting their pigs in the car or horse-wagons and taking off. The man probably decided probably it was to no avail, given that every Sunday morning, the market was recreated under his nose.
Generally the issue is not (yet?) about whether raising a pig is profitable. It has become a lot more difficult lately to give your pig away, but it is still possible. Prices have hit rock bottom. If EU standards will be enforced, it will be more difficult to keep pigs in the backyard. For now, people know that no money is to be made in the pig business for small producers, but they are still holding on to their eating practices, and what it means to have a good household.
People here say that they should be killed on Ignatius day on the 20th December, but this is not respected in the region. The cutting of the pig is an important event, uniting families, neighbours, friends and attracting guests into the courtyards. I was told that from now on I would hear screaming pigs every morning. The pigs are slaughtered the traditional way. Even though people are vaguely aware of the (considered, and so-called Occidental) EU prescription to ‘anaesthetize’ pigs (through electroshock, shot…) before cutting their throat, they do not put this into practice. The pig is cut through an incision to the throat, which immobilises it immediately, but which kills very slowly. The pig is transported to a makeshift table, usually with a ladder. When it is dead, it is scorched black with a massive burner, removing the hair, and the outside of the hooves. The pig is washed, cleaned, and its head cut off. Then the actual cutting into pieces begins, and it takes some skill to do this properly. The times I have witness this event, a lot of discussion was going into various, and differing opinions of expertise on how to cut, where, when, and what. The carcass steams in the cold December air. Despite variations there is a rough prescribed order of cutting, and at this time, pieces of ‘sorici’, pig skin, are offered to guests and participants, along with salt and coffee. The cutting up proceeds from the outside to the inside, and the guts are dealt with lastly. The pig needs to be turned from being on its side first, to sitting on its belly. Every bit is used (apart from the gall bladder and the bladder), including the bones. After the cutting, more work awaits, because most people do not have freezers! Preservation methods include the ‘untura’ that I mentioned. Much of the meat is smoked, but not entire hindquarters, as is done in North-Western Europe. The meat is cut into manageable pieces and smoked with a slow woodchip fire in a small room. The organs and lower quality pieces are minced and made into ‘toba’ (a kind of pate) and ‘carnatoi’ (a kind of sausage). Pofta buna!

The Fall. Reprise.

[caption on photo: Rumaenische Bauern vor ihrer Huette - postcard from the interwar period i would guess, maybe earlier]
In interviews I have recurrently encountered a certain kind of story about the ‘sat romanesc’, the Romanian village, as well as the Romanian peasant. It is a story remindful both of Christian mythology such as the Fall, where the taint of sin remains, and portrayals of the ‘noble savage’ where the subject in question oscillates back and forth between being pure, being fallen, and needing to be saved.
As in other mythical stories, this typological village is presented, despite numerous pieces of evidence to the contrary, like a unit that has existed since the beginning of time, where there have been no substantial changes since recently. Of course… Define recently. Define change. Define beginning of time.
But let us consider the grounding of the hypothesis for a moment. It is a story of innocence, corrupted, of eternity, interrupted, of paradise, lost, of angels, fallen. ‘Vesnicie s-a nascut in sat’ (eternity was born in the village). I dramatise to make the point, which is allowed. Example: ‘People have made cheese in this way for thousands of years’.
A presumed horizon of permanence is invaded with a sense of change, spiced up with loss, confusion and the shifting of boundaries and moralities. ‘Back in the days, we used to have ‘hore’, none of these discos, where no one is supervising’. ‘People have always made cheese like this and now they’re saying we’re not allowed anymore’. ‘… and now the eternity has been ended by us/them’.
One old guy tells me, well you know, this modern lifestyle isn’t very healthy, look at how many people are ill! There’s never been so many illnesses around. If this argument is made, it is often omitted that, actually, life as a peasant is pretty rough, because the state, the emperor, the landlord were never particularly forthcoming vis-à-vis this category of people. More cake for the peasants! More life span! More medication! (I just wrote a typo ‘meducation’, which screams for a post of its own… passons!)
When you look at nineteenth century sources (from Durandin 1995), despite agrarian reforms, people were not doing so well in the countryside. The rural idyll, in close-up, is lessened. Modernity plays in cities, not on the fields.
‘Les temps où l’on disait: “si vous voulez voir un type d’homme bien portant, allez dans les campagnes” sont passés. Sur toutes les physiognomies, enfants, vieillards, on ne lit que fatigue physique, langueur, chloroanémie, ils sont vieillis avant l’âge et one le moral très abattu. J’ai tâché de connaître la cause, et partout j’ai vu la misère. Tous ont tant de dettes qu’ils ne savent comment les payer’ (p.165).
A study of the ‘Economic and Social Situation of the Peasant in Romania’ (much like those published by the European Commission these days… ;-)) published in 1895 has a bit of statistics that tell ofs the physical state of the peasantry.
‘Reprenant les résultats des recencements des années 1869, 1874, et 1879, il indique qu’en 1869 un tiers des conscripts n’atteignent pas la taille de 1,57m requise pour le service; en 1879, un tiers se situent au-dessous de 1,54m. Il déplore aussi la multiplication des cas d’idiotisme [linked to lack of iodine, and thyroid dysfunction from birth] et de syphilis’ (p.165).
Agrarian revolts were never mentioned in the interviews, even though a lot of them happened in Romania in the last decades of the nineteenth century, and one particularly violent one in 1907. We are at the limits of narrative life-story methodology, because it does not go back far enough in time to appreciate, and so history books and historical sources are important supplements to go back further in time than 70 years at most. This spans, at best, a bit of time before communism was established. The horizon of reference of the interviews can be communism – post-communism. The nationalist, populist, and fascist politics of the turn of the century and anything earlier do not get an appreciation, also taking into account the way in which history education under communism had its own twist, legitimating the regime in place.
A few points emerge:
In Romania a complicated mythology exists around people’s historical origins, usually to be found in the countryside. Livelihoods: peasantry, agricultural work, commerce.
This mythology is both appropriated by the people left out by the recent changes in legislation due to European Union demands, and national policy, to affirm that the conservative, traditional elements have a value, and that they need to be protected, without, however, having much leverage power to put this into practice on their terms.
It is also appropriated not only by people representing the authorities, but also by people living in the countryside who are not peasants (who may consider themselves ‘intellectuals’ or city people who have worked in industry) that the people in question (‘peasants’) are inappropriate, that they need to modernise, to change, to adapt, in order to profit. They are considered backward, uncivilised, uneducated.
Funnily enough, the people who fall into the second category are also arguing for the salvation of the Romanian village, because it is the seat of the traditions, of popular music, poetry, architecture and dance. What exactly is there ‘to save’? So we save the traditions in a purified form and we discard the peasants? To me it sounds a bit like fission that removes the characteristics of the original substance and creates something else altogether. If, that is, substance is the right word to use here.
There is, it seems, nothing new under the sun. The French-educated historian Nicolae Iorga, who played a role in creating nationalist sentiments in pre-Balkanic-wars-Romania, directs, from 1903, the periodical ‘Samanatorul’, which promotes a socially and morally engaged national literature. In it, rural values are celebrated: the peasant is the vector of continuity, of collective memory and of respect of tradition. He is the figure of resistance against decadence, foreign pollution, and the anonymity and misery of the cities.
I am reminded of Justin Kenrick’s lectures and the idea of closure, that it had to be either idealist and pure, or materialist and wicked. I want an appreciation not centred on these opposites begetting opposites begetting opposites and not much light, though I understand that people want to make one argument, not the other. I have the anthropology illness, of not wanting to decide for one side… doesn’t make me a good interviewee as I recently found out… ;-)

Place and Season

I have left to Bucharest for a week. Upon leaving I find myself looking at everything again, in the hope to remember everything, should I not return. As much as I want to leave at times, I have grown very attached to the place. One woman told me that she was like salcam, that she could put her roots anywhere and feel well. I wonder to what extent that is true for me?
The lushness of those trees and all the climbing plants on the houses make me want to have very special drawing abilities that could capture all the windings and shadings and colour shades perfectly. They even have vines, despite the altitude at which we are. I am forever amazed by the way in which seasonality still makes sense in the village I have now been staying at for about four months. The products correspond to certain times. Winter was the time of nuts and onions and cabbage. We had salcam honey, then the apple trees started to flower. Now soc is in bloom, and people prepare a kind of pancakes with these flowers that I find absolutely gorgeous. The garden is full of salad, spring onions and the tomatoes are starting to grow. The prune trees are full of little green bulbs that stick into the air. While I got more cascaval in early spring, now I get strawberry jam and honey. Soon we'll have cherries, and I cannot wait...

O Lume Minunata

What comes to mind when you see this kitchen? What does it do to your imagination? How would it be a different experience if you had been in the kitchen, met the woman in the picture, smelled the food she was preparing and heard the rain coming down the mountains? How would it be the same? What features did you concentrate on and what memories did they recall for you? How would it feel if you had lived there all your adult life? What about childhood? The reconciliation of worlds, even if just for a moment, happens all the time. That is the most important lesson I learnt ever so recently.

Forthcoming...

Here, the news about the forthcoming World Development Report that - almost surprisingly - acknowledges the damages made to agriculture and other sectors by deregulation policies and laissez-faire to the point of abandonment. You may have heard it all before, but it needs to be remembered and made present more often. Still a third of humanity lives in absolute poverty, still the gap between rich and poor rises, with rural areas in the "third world" at the bottom of the bottom rungs. Quote from Le Monde: "Bien que l'agriculture ne soit pas le seul instrument capable de les sortir de la pauvreté, c'est une source hautement efficace de croissance pour y parvenir." An important sentence after all these years during which agriculture has been devalued, underpaid and the consequences remained little considered.
I wonder what impact the following strategy will have on the world and how exactly the World Bank will re-orient its policies for what Le Monde says may be 20 years...
"L'accélération du changement climatique, l'imminence d'une crise de l'eau, la lente adoption des nouvelles biotechnologies, et le bourgeonnement de la demande de biocarburants et d'aliments pour le bétail créent de nouvelles incertitudes sur les conditions dans lesquelles la nourriture sera disponibles dans l'économie mondiale".