Lake Angels and the Pig

A crisp cold December morning in Barga Vecchia with the occasional flurry of light snow drifting into the piazza. The Lake Angels were in the piazza with another of their very popular fund-raising events. Usually they are at work during the summer - this time their collective creative juices were flowing around the idea of a winter based event - preparing sausages, roasts and biroldo for the coming holiday season.

A 180 kilo pig freshly slaughtered was brought into one of the small cantinas facing onto the piazza and five butchers set to work. If it wasn't for the distant whine of high-performance engines of the rally cars further up the mountain, you could almost think that you were back in another period of time.

Apart from the electricity used to power the sausage maker, everything was exactly how it would have been for centuries here in Barga - even down to the scales which looked as though they had been around since the Medici period. People coming out of the Sunday mass and wandering through the piazza suddenly found themselves transformed back in time where things were done the old way and even the price reflected this as all this meat was being sold at the cutdown price for charity. There were hectic scenes as people jostled and pushed in an attempt to get their hands on what must have been the freshest sausages in town - they were being made to order - " how many do you want, five or six?" and the handle was turned and five or six fresh sausages were expertly tied, cut, weighed and delivered to the waiting customer.

 Click on the link below to hear Milton talking about the Lake Angels and todays event (in Italiano)

 

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8 Responses to “Lake Angels and the Pig”

Comments

1. jjcarde Dec 17 2007 / 1am

   Grandi lakes!!
2. DrWho Dec 18 2007 / 7pm

   non capisco tutto questo entusiasmo di fronte ad un animale squartato…se barganews ci facesse la grazia di risiarmiarci altri giorni di macabre immagini…
3. rhazckal Dec 20 2007 / 2pm

   Sottoscrivo quanto detto da DrWho
4. doggybag Dec 20 2007 / 3pm
   

   rhazckal and Dr. Who - are you turning your collective backs on your own local culture ? In that case what did you think of the Daily Image from the 18th Dec ?

   Believe me, I am no supporter of the hunters but they are at least somewhat in tune with the changing seasons and their position in a moving world. The killing of small birds to eat was once something that was an important part of the winter diet as it was valuable addition to the the protein input during the long winter months. These days the sight of tiny birds on the plate will undoubtedly inspire a fierce reaction from many people and rightly so.

   Lets extend this argument a bit to include the slaughtered pig - maybe we should all be just going down to the Le Clerc hypermarket and buying our meat in pristine clean, carefully marketed and subtly lit plastic packages that manage to remove us mentally and physically from the fact that it is part of a butchered animal ?

   The killing and preparing of a pig was once upon a time something that happened at this time of year and involved a large group in the community - it was a community event so to speak. The Lake Angels have managed to keep that kind of feeling going and brought right back into Barga Vecchia something that was gradually dying out.

   I spent most of the day recording the voices of the (mainly) older people who reminisced about the “old days”, the recipes and the way of life in Barga between the two world wars. They spoke of hardships and difficult times but also of a tighter community that was based around a far different series of rules and conventions than the ones that push the community today.

   On a final note - Dr. Who wrote about being spared other macabre images on barganews - I would suggest that you instead pick up your daily newspaper, switch on the tv or log on the internet and just sit back and look at the images of the civilian casualties taking place on a daily basis just across the sea from us. Let this bloody tide of images wash over you and then decide what is a macabre image - people getting blown to bits as they go about their daily lives or the images of a pig being prepared in a cantina in Piazza Angelio ?
5. Deety Dec 20 2007 / 5pm

   You are right DB but I must admit that I am one of those people who prefer pig in bar-coded polyethylene bags with the specially Inkjet-ed words “Fresh local produce”, “Sell by date” and “Special Offer” slowly dribbling through the plastic to create that supermarket tattooed humanely conserved dead meat look - so although it doesn’t taste as good I only risk puking after having eaten it. (Umm. us townies…)
6. poetry Dec 20 2007 / 8pm

   Well said db.
7. DrWho Dec 20 2007 / 9pm

   siccome io non “turning my back” a niente, parlo ancora la lingua della mia “own local culture” quindi non recepisco il messaggio…non prendertela Doggy ma noi due ci spieghiamo meglio a parole…

Blog posts on this article

1. Biroldo, biroldo, biroldo at barganews Dec 18 2007 / 3pm

   [...] story we published on Sunday which was somewhat mischievously entitled "Lake Angels and the Pig" had a sequel which [...]

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