Death Comes to All

Ok, fair warning. The pictures to follow are pretty graphic, if you have a weak stomach, don’t like the sight of blood or have no interest in seeing the slaughter of an animal….go away, this isn’t for you…

Now, a little back story. When I first moved to Bhutan, I inherited 2 little piglets from the former Chef. He had planned to raise them for a Barbeque party but they weren’t nearly big enough to slaughter by the time he left so I was stuck with them. Due to business levels and a lot of procrastination on my part the piglets turned into massive beasts that eventually were too big for their pig pen.

Not the most comfortable living conditions I admit

            Something had to be done. Being a Chef and infatuated with everything pig and pork related I purposely didn’t get attached to these creatures and thought of them only as food…delicious, food.

            The day before I felt like a mob boss… Conversations going something like this:

            “so you know a guy that can take care of them?”

            “good, what does he want for payment?”

            “ok, how long will he take to get it done?”

            “good, good, I’ll arrange the place, just tell him to show up at 8am...”

I was apprehensive, I had never seen anyone slaughter any type of animal live before nevermind 2 animals I had practically raised myself.

            A half bottle of whisky, a dream of the ‘Zuckerman’s Famous Pig’ parade (from Charlottes Web) and a few hours of sleep later Chef Matt and I were on our way.

            I had no idea what to expect, our friends coming to help us with the slaughter were local guys, one with shaky hands from too much ara (the local spirit), another with one eye, and another who never stops smiling, literally.

         Skip to the killing, we are standing there watching the above scene. The men tied a rope around the pigs neck, attached it to a nearby tree and strangled it. Yes, strangled it to death. It was tough to watch.   

            Many would find this appalling and inhuman and if I were in any other country I would agree, but I’m in Bhutan. This is the way they do things and have done things for a very long time. There is no rifle for a quick easy kill, they don’t have spears or skill enough to stick it through the heart. I wasn’t very happy with this form of taking an animals life but on the other hand to have to respect the culture and their way of doing things.

Once the animals had passed it was time for the rest of the process. We dragged the pigs out of the pen and brought them to an open area where we could remove the hair.

Being a rice cultivating culture there is dried rice stalks everywhere. The men gathered a large amount and got to burnin’

This Bastard was heavy...

We scraped the hair from the animals as best we could, washed them and moved them to the slaughter site a few yards away.


On a thin piece of metal covered in dried rice stalks (to catch excess blood) they started the butchering process...

A first cut was made across the neck and he proceeded to cut down  the middle of the pig and remove the belly... Yeah thats a machete he's using to cut by the way...

Once the belly was removed, it was time for the most beautiful part..

I'm being sincere when I say beautiful, I really thought the innards were a gorgeous sight.. Sort of fascinating in a gruesome way.

Chef Matt, scooping that blood

We wanted to use as much of the animals as possible, save the blood for sausage, save the heads, all the offal but being that sanitation was not the top priority of this slaughter we decided against it.

Myself cutting up some heart, some lungs, some liver for payment

We cut up the offal for payment (all-in-all we had to sacrifice one head, both belly's and most innards for payment to our butcher) then sent both carcasses away for further butchering and storage. Hopefully a BBQ pig roast will follow to give thanks for these creatures giving their lives for our stomachs.

My first experience with slaughter was definitely an interesting one. I won't say we enjoyed it but we experienced it and are better for it. My thanks to Chef Matt over at Prickly Ash for joining me during this event.