The pig was considered a divine animal, believed to have fed even Zeus himself. In Gaul, Obelix and his companions ate not only wild boars, but entire herds of pigs. The Celts, Germans, and Romans were always great consumers of pork. The latter taught us the organization of slaughter and the sale of meat in butcher shops, thus institutionalizing the butcher as a profession. In almost all European cultures, sacrificing these animals to the gods was a purifying practice, intended to prevent diseases believed to be transmitted by the products of the slaughter.
Asturias inherits from the civilization in which it is inscribed the love for the pig, almost an object of desire, a religion that involves invocations to the saints so that everything goes well: "These pigs that are named, may Saint John watch over them, amen; Saint Martin feed them, amen; Saint Blaise free them from all evil, amen…"
It will be Saint Martin's Day , November 11th , that officially kicks things off . The following months are dedicated to pork, but the slaughter itself was not without its own inaugural ritual. In many parts of Asturias, the animal was fattened on chestnuts for two weeks beforehand, and the day before, it was put on a fast so its intestines could be cleansed. There was nothing to be done, and the end was near: "Every pig has its Saint Martin's Day." And yet, this saying uses the pig to refer to man himself and his destiny—a cruel metaphor, an unavoidable moment, in short.
The slaughter of the pig, and its parallel rituals, which for centuries shaped a worldview of survival, are now little more than a memory. But they are only a memory in their manifestations, for the ritual has been refined, changed in form, and although slaughterhouses proliferate, rural areas suffer depopulation, and urban life brings new rituals, the products of the slaughter will always be the products of the slaughter, and the pig will continue to occupy a worthy throne. It is no coincidence that all of Asturias knows it owes a debt to its meat , and many towns annually pay tribute to the pig on Saint Martin's Day and in the months that follow, until February, even April. The entire Asturian region dedicates a few intense days to remembering. It usually does so under the guise of gastronomic festivals, with leftover and somewhat stylized dishes appearing on the menus of many restaurants.
Although the tradition is still alive, in many homes a certain rural splendor has been lost, and with it a certain sense of domesticity, which has diminished. Previously, tasks were divided between men and women . The men were the ones who slaughtered, skinned, gutted, and butchered the pig; the women, for their part, collected the pig's blood and cleaned its intestines to make blood sausages, chopped onions, operated the sausage-making machine…
It was hard work that stretched into one or more days and predisposed everyone—men, women, and children—to enjoy the marinade, liver soup, chorizo, pork chops, and steaks from that moment on. With the meat safely stored, the people's ingenuity came to the fore, making the most of the entire pig and leaving nothing to chance, preparing dozens of byproducts and traditional dishes, all with a taste honed by historical experience and deep rural roots: such as the aforementioned liver soup, Don Adobo, rice or potatoes with ribs, blood sausages, the exquisite chorizo, hams, cured pork shoulders, sausages, pig's trotters, tongue, tripe, loin, and so on.
The universe of names to call the parts of the gochu is inifinito for two reasons: for the number of distinctive parts of its organism, and for the neat semantics of the different Asturian regions, which use different names to call the same product, and that make the synonymy and polysemy so rich to talk about the pig as to eat it.
It's almost a semantic whim to select a handful of municipalities with a San Martín tradition here, as the entire region celebrates it. But some, more than others, have elevated this gastronomic deity even further. In the town of Noreña, they've placed it on a pedestal; there stands one of the only sculptures dedicated to this animal. The monument to the "gochu" (pig), as the work is called, aims to highlight the truth and give credit where credit is due. Noreña owes more to the pig than anyone else; its meat industries, famous throughout northern Spain, supply a significant portion of this market with their generous San Martín offerings.
Also noteworthy are the gastronomic festivals in this council in the center of Asturias, with the tripe festival in December, and the picadillo and sabadiego festivals in late April.
Other places famous for their gastronomic festivals are Caso, Moreda (Aller), Onís, Bimenes, La Arquera (Salas), all of which celebrate them in December; Amieva, in February; Riosa with its tripe festival in April, and many more.
Take bread and get wet.
Text: © Ramón Molleda for asturias.com
