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Notes: |
Personal
Notes: Cleaning mommy’s chitterlings
I have to tell you a story about how the McKoy family enjoyed chitterlings annually during the winter close to Christmas, when the season began that would and what happened when mommy decided it was time for her daughters, Lois and Emma learned how to clean chitterlings. It was an experience we still laugh and talk about today.
The ritual of cooking chitterlings began with the cleaning procedures. First, the killing of the huge hogs took place, we girls, my sister Emma and myself hid out in the house while this gruesome activity took place away fro9m the house near the field. We could hear what was going on but that was enough. Men skilled in cutting and or carving skills arrived to each farm early in the cold morning ready and eager to quickly and efficiently prepared the dead animal for processing and curing.
Out in this field, the chitterlings were skillfully removed from the animal, initially cleaned several times before bringing them to the house to my mother, where Gladys’s cleaning and preparation began and lasted for two or three days. Finally, Gladys announced it was time for her girls, Emma and Lois to learn how to clean chitterlings. We protested loudly and passionately, and thought we were getting our fraught pleas through. A few days later, we learned that our disdain for this job was to no avail. Gladys gave us our final instructions, and set us off to clean those chitterlings.
At first we thought complaining and pleading that we didn’t know how to do this would work. Nope, we found ourselves sitting over a pail of chitterlings with knives and utensils needed for the cleaning. We went to work as fast as we could, cleaning and cleaning, turning and turning, rinsing over and over again. After it seemed several hours, we announced proudly to mom, “chitterlings cleaned,” Gladys took one look and shrieked, Oh my God, you children has ruined my chitterlings. She exclaimed, “ these chitterlings look like white stockings.” She was so upset, but we were so proud, they looked so clean to us.
Well the family ate those chitterlings. Gladys cooked the chitterlings, and explained to our dad, Charlie, what had happened. He chuckled to himself trying not to let Gladys see his amusement. Needless to say, we never had to clean chitterlings again. I still use the same method of cleaning my chitterlings, washing and looking them over and over again, with one last salting them down in a salt brim, rinsing again before seasoning and cooking them in a steam pressure.
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This recipe for Chitterlings is from