Pioneer farm families raised pigs and calves to butcher. They hoisted the carcass on a tall tripod of saplings, and later iron poles.  The father, often a skilled butcher, killed the animal and removed the cattle's hide and removed the entrails.  The liver and heart were saved for kidney pie.

Hog meat was cut up into hams, pork rinds, shoulders, rigs, neck bones, spine bones and pigs feet.

Layers of fat were cut off the carcass to make lard. It was cooked down in a large black kettle. Lard was put into large round cans for storage and this lard was used the rest of the year for skillet fry cooking. Crisp fat called cracklings was saved to put into mush to slice later. If the skin with a little fat was cooked in a hot kettle, you would have a snack called pork rinds. Sometimes the entrails of the pig were cleaned and fried in this kettle to make chitlins.

The empty kettle was so hot that many people would put popcorn kernels into the kettle to make popcorn.

Everyone in the family worked at some job. The littlest ones keep the wood supplied to the fire under the black kettle. Everyone, even the children scraped hair off the slaughtered hog after they had been scalded in barrels of boiling water, previously heated in the big black kettles.

Skin of the hog is smoothed and cleaned. Scalding loosened the hair roots. Usually the young hogs were preferred since sows and boars had a strong flavored flesh.

The hams and shoulders were trimmed smooth and after draining for several days were covered with a cure of brown sugar, lots of salt, pepper, spices and other ingredients. Later, they were hung to dry by absorbing the salt and spices.

Sometimes after drying and curing out they were wrapped in cheese cloth to keep them clean, some were wrapped in butcher's papers. All the butchering and curing had to be done in cold weather.

As much as possible, the scraps trimmed off the meat were ground into sausage. Often the intestines of the hog were washed out and made to be very clean. The tubs of the intestines were stuffed with sausage by a hand turned sausage stuffer. Usually, sausage patties and stuffed sausage were oven fried. The sausage was put into a crock in the early years, or in glass jars later.

The hot lard in the pans was poured over the sausage in the crocks so the air could not get into the meat. Then in the summertime the farm people had meat taken from the crocks sealed with lard.

The meat around the head and shanks was made into ponhaus, head cheese, pickled souse and pickled pigs feet. The ponhaus was boiled into cornmeal mush and when cold was sliced, heated and served. Sometimes it was called "Scrapple."

The head was sawed into pieces to e cooked and the meat was picked off.

The backbone was cut into six lengths and hung up in the smoke house along with other meats. In the cold winter the backbones were stewed for hours on the coal range and potatoes finally added to cook with the bones. The gelatin and minerals were cooked and absorbed by the potatoes. The tenderloin was pealed from the backbone and it was canned in a lard pack, too. The tenderloin is now cut into the eye of the pork chop.

Cooking was no problem because the wood or coal range also heated the entire kitchen.

After the earliest radios came into use the comment was "everything in the pig was used except the squeal and now the squeal is used by the radio as squealing static." Since early radio sounds had whistling sounds and other noises.

When the cured meats had absorbed the salt and spices, they were hung in the smoke house over a smoky, slow burning fire to be smoke cured. The wood used in this fire was usually hickory. Cured meats were served throughout the summer and the rest of the year. They were salty, dry and nothing like the hams in the supermarkets now.

The butchered beef was hung in the smoke house during the bitter cold winter. Then it too was sliced, oven baked, and lard packed.

Small chunks of beef trimmings were cooked then minced and mixed together with diced apples, raisins, sugar, spices and wine or sweet vinegar and were cooked and canned as mincemeat for pies.

Before 1900 and until about 1910-1914, before World War I, it was common for relatives or family friends to come to help with the slaughter, cleaning the carcasses, the cutting up of the quarters, making of the lard, cutting meat for sausage, grinding up the meat, cleaning out of the intestines, and stuffing them with sausage to make links. All the work was done in one day.

Canning was done later. Each cooperative family was given fresh meat to take home as compensation for their help. In later years as the area became settled, families or communities would gather for a cooperative butchering and would exchange labor and help slaughter and process each others meats. Usually several hogs were butchered, sometimes as many as six were done, in this cooperative manner. By 1915-1916 we butchered one or two hogs at a time and the whole family worked to prepare the meat so it could be stored and later used for meals throughout the year..

Usually each family had their own chickens to have a fresh supply of eggs. And stewed or roast hen was easily available throughout the year. Chicken brooders came into use and 100 or 200 chickens were raised at a time by about 1915. Several family members would gather in chicken butchering day. Again, a wood fire was started and a pot of scalding hot water was prepared. The chickens would be caught and beheaded on the chopping block with a sharp axe or hatchet, and allowed to bleed out.

The neck was then seared over the fire and the entire chicken would be dipped into the scalding hot water. This allowed the feathers to be easily plucked from the bird. After the chicken was thoroughly plucked of the feathers, any remaining fine hairs and feathers that remained were seared off over the fire and the legs were cut off the chicken.

The bird was gutted and taken into the house, rinsed well and cut up and allowed to soak for a short time. The chicken would then be cooked in a big pot until the meat would fall off the bones. The cooked meat would be placed into jars and sealed. The remaining bones would continue to be cooked until the small bits of meat on the ribs and neck came off easily. Then the bones were removed and the broth was cooked down for use in soups and for chicken and dumplings. The broth was allowed to chill down until the fat raised to the top and could be skimmed off. Some of the broth was sometimes canned for much later use. The rest was used the next day for chicken and dumplings or a chicken and vegetable soup.

Then the four hour cold pack method of canning young chickens became useful to provide ready-to-use chicken for the coming winter. Now the pressure cooker is more practical to can all surplus meats or vegetables in addition to the freezer for year around storage.

Before 1900 fruits were dried and hung in cheese cloth bags. Herbs were dried and hung on rafters. Potatoes and other vegetables and apples were stored in bins in the cellar.

Even up until 1916, a pit was dug in the garden and well lined with straw. Cabbages, turnips, potatoes and sometimes fruit were laid out on the straw. They were then covered with a thick layer of straw. A door or opening was installed at one end. A lot of earth was shoveled over the whole pit, forming a big mound.

In the winter, fresh vegetables or fruit were scooped out of this pit and used for meals. The hole or opening of the pit was again covered with more straw to save the contents from freezing or spoiling.