I always take Isa and Maria home from school and today Isa asked me if I wanted to 'toma un foto del chancho muerto'. John and I were both like sure ---we'll go take a picture of a dead pig. Well come to find out that there was a very large festival last weekend in Santa Rosa and their family was selling lots of pork on Saturday.
We walked in right when her husband and uncles starting working on it. They were pouring hot water on the pig to make it easier to skin. I was amazed that the skin was pure white...I would have thought a rosy color.
This is Isa and I trying to skin a portion of the pig with a knife. She kept saying 'muy duro'...which is harder-harder ... because I'm a weakling and was barely getting any hair off of it!
She eagerly showed me around her house, her family, her family's houses, etc. Isa is like the town cook. She cooks for the school, she cooks for soccer games, and she cooks and sells food for the community out of her house as well. I wish I could have gotten a picture but she literally has 3 kitchens (1 inside and 2 fire stoves/pits outside).
John and I left that day just amazed at the amount of work that goes into the concept from 'farm to fork'. She tried to explain how over the next 2 days that will be hanging the pig, marinating the meat, etc.
John and I then made a point to attend the Santa Rosa/Finca Festival to eat some fresh chancho. We have made friends with a Nicaraguan family so we asked if the mom (Isabella) and their three kids (Christopher, Sofia, and Angie) wanted to go with us. John took this picture below - poor Sofia got cut off but you can see Chris' head.
We first showed up at the wrong place (Santa Rosa). I guess most of the crowd meets in Santa Rosa on horseback and then they all ride over to the farm together. So, we got back in the car and headed to a random farm (almost back to where we broke down last weekend). We walked in and were quite definitely the only gringos at the festival. Everybody was standing around a ring hanging out. Maria found us pretty quickly and showed us their food station.
We bought a few skewers of pork (que rico!) and the kids had fun listening to the live music and watching the bulls (which all of them were trying to mount each other...such good entertainment).
We left right when the fiesta was probably getting started (there was a big bull ride that night). As we were exiting ... all the hundreds and possibly a couple thousand horses were entering. I thought our car was going to be pummeled...but thankfully no bruises on our little geo (notice we are the ones off the road).
Next time you eat pork...think of our chancho experience!
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