I followed a pig’s journey from birth to pork roast. It complicated my relationship with my Christmas food.
Danes love pork roast for Christmas. But what kind of life did the pig have before it ended up as a juicy roast with crispy crackling? Line Vaaben has spent the last six months following a pig from birth to pork roast to investigate what it does to the consumer to meet their food.
The slices of pork roast in front of me glisten with juices. It steams from the plate. Both from the brown gravy and the red cabbage surrounding the meat and the bubbling, crispy rind. I cut a piece of the roast and bring it to my mouth. But then I stop.
I force myself to think about who I have on my fork rather than what. And I think back to that summer day when I met the animal that now lies cooked before me. On my first encounter with pig number 1069.
I’ve eaten pork roast every Christmas Eve all my 49 years of life. And I’m not the only one. Danes buy and consume millions of pounds of pork every December. Without necessarily giving the pig a second thought. But this year, I wanted to delve deeper into the production of my festive food and question if my relationship to it would change after getting to know the pig.
A pig is born
When I first see the pig, it has just been pushed out of its mother, the sow, along with its 23 siblings. It is 4 June 2021 in a pigsty outside Sorø. Most of the newborns already have their teats latched onto the sow’s dark pink tits. Others stutter sleepily on the floor. The birth membrane still clings to their skin, and the umbilical cord dangles under the belly. Two piglets lie still under a heat lamp in the corner. They are weak after giving birth.
’Let’s hope they make it,’ says pig farmer Joachim Clausen. He is dressed in grey trousers, a grey T-shirt and white rubber boots. He doesn’t talk much, but when he does, it’s in sing-song Zealand dialect.
He owns the pigs and the farm. His farm has seven properties in the area and he produces 45,000 slaughter pigs a year. That’s a doubling since he took over the farm from his father four years ago. He is 27 years old.
’I grew up with pigs,’ he says.
’If my father had cows, I probably would have had cows.’
The sow gets up to get a drink. Metal shackles tight around her body make movement difficult, but they also prevent her from lying on top of the newborns.
’She could easily squeeze five or six to death when she lies down again,’ says Joachim Clausen.
’But she’s only fixed for the first five days.’
Although he raises pigs conventionally, Joachim Clausen is keen to make sure they are as comfortable as possible, he explains.
’I also lose money when the pigs die, and it also costs money to get rid of a dead pig.’
The sow grunts deeply. The sound is a sign that the milk is running dry. Her taut udder rises up like a wide, pink mountain range. Below, the piglets struggle squealing to join in. They have neither number nor name.
’We don’t care who’s who,’ says Joachim Clausen.
But I do. Because I have to choose a pig I can follow for the next five and a half months - all the way to my plate. The farmer hands me a can of blue spray paint. About 10 per cent of the pigs die in the first month, so he advises me to tick off a few.
’I’d take the biggest ones,’ he says. I paint a stripe on the backs of four newborns. Afterwards, I strike one of them over the side. I can feel the bones under the soft pink skin. There is no pork. Yet.
To look the animal in the eye
I call Mickey Gjerris, PhD in bioethics and former member of the Ethics Council. He is the author of several books on food ethics and nature conservation, among other things, and he is also a vegan. I want to know what he thinks about my project.
’How interesting that you’re calling,’ he says.
’I’ve just read a scientific article about a new trend. Some believe that if we look the animal in the eye before it dies, it’s more honest to eat it afterwards.’
The motto is ’only eat what you kill’. The proponents believe that the modern consumer has become alienated by the huge distance between the animal and the dining table. But if we meet the pig, cow or chicken, and perhaps even kill it ourselves, we re-establish a relationship with nature and thus a more respectful relationship between food and man.
’So I’m actually trendy,’ I ask hopefully.
’Yes, very’, says Mickey Gjerris and adds:
’But to me it’s just an attempt to make it okay to kill animals, even if it’s not necessary for our survival. The animal is still reduced to food.’
The many labelling schemes guaranteeing that the animal has had a good life are all about one thing, he says.
’It’s also just a narrative we create to avoid the discomfort we have inside.’
’What’s that discomfort about?’ I ask.
’About taking the life of another living, thinking being,’ says Mickey Gjerris.
Basically, he believes that humans are empathic. We just put empathy on hold to allow ourselves to eat meat. And he thinks my desire for pork will change as I follow the pig through its production.
’If you can still enjoy the roast afterwards, you either haven’t opened your eyes to the conditions the pig lives in, or you’re a bit jaded,’ he says.
Goodbye to mother
The next visit to the pigsty is when the piglets are to be taken from the sow. They will be moved to another of Joachim Clausen’s farms, where they will spend the next month and a half.
My pigs have been given a numbered turquoise plastic chip in their ears so I can recognise them: 1069, 1070, 1071 and 1072 are having a last drink of mother’s milk. The sow has her eyes closed and is lying perfectly still. Until Pamela, the farm worker, a short-haired woman in a cap, slaps her on the back:
’Come on!’.
The sow gets up with a swaying udder. Pamela whistles and pushes her into the next building, where she is given a cubicle to herself. It’s Thursday. On Monday she will be inseminated again. And in three months, three weeks and three days she will have a new litter of piglets.
But now the sow is written out of history. Back in the stall, Pamela gets to work vaccinating the piglets against pneumonia and a harmful swine virus. Afterwards they are driven out in a waiting truck, and with Joachim Clausen at the wheel they have to be transported five kilometres down the road.
Pamela has a syringe with a handle and a small container of vaccine. She safely pokes the little pigs one at a time with one hand, and with the other she stamps them with a green crayon. The piglet gives a little squeak.
’My stomach says it’s nine o’clock,’ Pamela says afterwards.
’Time for coffee,’ says Joachim Clausen. Turbo, the brown-and-grey-striped cat, brushes up against his leg. It got its name because it is laid back, he explains.
650 piglets have to be vaccinated and moved today. A helper has a broom. Another has a push stick that looks like a paddle. They push the pigs one at a time. Past pregnant sows, up a ramp and into the barn. Slowly, the pig truck fills with squealing piglets.
Three boys and a girl
When Joachim Clausen parks at the new barn a little later and opens the truck, the piglets run down the ramp like a rolling sea of pink. I try to spot my pigs in the grunting stream. 1070 and 1071 come galloping with curls on their tails. Shortly after, 1069 passes. It stops, sniffs and looks up at me. Then he leaves a turd and runs on.
Joachim Clausen has ten employees for the daily care. A mix of Danes and Ukrainians - and most of them women. He visits all the stables during the week, but spends most of his time on accounts, buying feed, repairs and such.
’I’m the director of a company with a turnover of 50 million kroner a year,’ he says.
It is his assistant Charlotte who will be looking after the pigs for the next month and a half. She sorts the pigs by size in the stalls. Right now, the piglets weigh between seven and ten kilos, she estimates. She doesn’t use weight, but eye measurements based on years of experience. She has worked on the farm for 14 years - previously for Joachim Clausen’s father.
’I was handed down’, as she says.
The new barn is a so-called ’climate barn’ with heating in the floor so the little pigs don’t freeze.
My four pigs land in the same stall. I lean over the railing and ask if Charlotte can tell what sex they are. She resolutely grabs the back leg of 1070, turns it upside down and states: ’This is a boy’. She catches them one at a time and checks. Three boys and a girl.
When I get back to work, a colleague asks, ’Have you named the pigs?’
I shrug a little: ’Nah.’
On the way home, I consider the possibility. Curly, Grunt, Peppa or maybe Oink?
The troughs in the trough
It’s late summer, harvesters have shaved the fields, and my four chosen pigs have been moved again. They are three and a half months old and are kept in a barn with only fattening pigs. Above their stalls hangs a handwritten piece of paper on which one of the staff has written: ’4 earmarked film stars’.
From now on, there is only a three per cent risk that the pigs will die from, for example, diarrhoea or inflammation of a wound. So today I have to choose my pig.
’I would probably take the lady,’ says Joachim Clausen.
’The males can be sorted out at the slaughterhouse.’
Uncastrated pigs grow better and more efficiently. So Joachim Clausen doesn’t castrate his animals. But that means the meat from the hanging pigs may smell of the two substances skatol and androstenone. The slaughterhouse rejects pigs with too high levels of the two substances and uses them for food where the odour is not activated. If I want to be sure of a delicious roast, I have to choose the lady. She has ear tag 1069.
The previous barn was a sort of all-inclusive for pigs, where they could eat as much as they wanted from a feeder. But here, the diet is restricted: food five times a day at 8am, 1pm, 6pm, 11pm and 3am. Joachim Clausen can turn on feeding with a touch of the phone. Then the mixed feed comes roaring into the trough straight from the silo. Water mixed up with flour, barley, wheat, rye, soya meal and minerals. It tastes like sweet porridge.
The pigs become agitated as the pipes begin to rumble, and as soon as the feed clatters into the trough, they line up. They squeal and squeeze forward.
’The best places are where the feed runs out. And it’s always the same pigs that get them,’ says Joachim Clausen.
Shortly afterwards, the herd is lined up with their heads down in the trough and their bottoms facing the same way. Then the farmer and his staff can check the tail. It has to curl.
’If it’s hanging, they’re not doing so well. And then we do something to disentangle them.’
They also keep an eye out for tail bites. If there’s a problem with bites in a stall, it’s a matter of getting the biting pig out before it does more damage.
’That’s why some farmers clip the tails,’ says Joachim Clausen.
A stall further down the stable aisle has had problems with bites. Some of the pigs have bloody stumps instead of curls. They have been put on penicillin treatment so the infection doesn’t go to their legs.
’Then it can get really bad,’ says Joachim Clausen.
And then Anita, the stable worker, has hung toys from the ceiling: a bucket with a rope in it, hanging at the height of the pigs’ heads, which they can bite into. There are also holders in each stall with soft wooden sticks for the pigs to gnaw on.
’What’s up, Chubby?’ says Anita to a curious pig, who sticks up his front legs and head as she walks past.
’I guess it is okay to call them fat. They are,’ she says apologetically.
Day 108
Stuck in the meat
My pig weighs about 30 kilos, and from now on it will really only do three things: Eat, sleep and shit. The pigs do the latter at the end of the stall with bars in the floor where the slurry runs down. At the other end is cement and bedding. Some pigs cough a little. It has been cold last night and pigs can easily catch a cold. Fortunately, they have each other to keep warm, and an hour after feeding, almost all the pigs in the house are lying close together. They close their eyes. Flies land in swarms on their still bodies.
’Pigs are pretty smart,’ says Joachim Clausen.
’And curious. Everything has to be investigated.’
They also remember well. They know when to feed, even if the plant hasn’t made a sound.
’That’s why you shouldn’t change their routine too much. Because they like rhythms best.’
1069 is a little bigger than several of the others in the path, and she has a black spot on her belly just to the left of her tail. Joachim Clausen takes her out onto the concrete walkway. She immediately starts galloping back and forth.
Suddenly she stands still and looks directly at me. Her feet are filthy with shit. The muzzle is damp. But the fur is dry and smooth. I run my hand over the back of my pig and rub her a little. The flesh under the skin is firm.
’A slaughter pig should not be too fat,’ says Joachim Clausen.
’It should have good meat on it.’
I ask him which part of the pig he likes best.
’The sirloin and the pork roast,’ says Joachim Clausen. But he doesn’t eat his own pigs. He buys his meat at Rema1000 in Stenlille.
’It’s easier than having to make a deal with the butcher.’
He always buys Danish meat, though.
’Or rather: It’s my better half who buys in,’ he says. Joachim Clausen is married and has two young children.
I massage 1069 in the middle of his back, where the pork is. She’s warm and her fur is a bit stiff. She stands perfectly still and seems to like it. After an hour of free dressage, Joachim Clausen puts her back in the same stall as before.
’If I put her in a different pen, she would get beaten. The pecking order is established,’ he says.
1069 stands up on her front legs and looks me straight in the eye. The teat vibrates a little. Then she jumps down and turns her ass to me.
I have not yet given the pig a name. It feels strange when it ends up on my dining table. I ask Mickey Gjerris what it’s all about. Anthropomorphism is a fancy word for attributing human traits to animals.
’And when we name the animal, we associate with it and recognise that it is an individual being with its own personality. Just like our pets,’ he says,
When the animal has a name, it’s harder to treat it badly. And also harder to eat it, says Mickey Gjerris. And the name can also highlight the animal’s personality.
’And production animals have that too. They are as different as dogs and cats. If we gave them the opportunity to express that, we’d find out. But we don’t have that opportunity when we treat them like food on legs.’
I think of 1069 and promise myself to look for specific traits when we next meet.
Photo studio in the stable
It will be when the pig is 137 days old. The photographer’s mission is to get a good-looking portrait photo of my pig. She’s asleep, but gets to her feet with a grunt as we drag tripods, a polyester sheet and several lenses into the barn. Joachim Clausen empties a box of pigs. I look at 1069, who is walking with her siblings. She is the biggest in the pen. About 85 kilos, Joachim Clausen estimates. And she puts on about 1,200 grams a day.
The photographer sets up a tripod with a beautiful light blue backdrop. It looks like a photo studio. Joachim Clausen sprinkles wood shavings on the floor so 1069 has something to fiddle with and might want to stand still.
’I’d be quick if I were you. She’s going to tear that up,’ says Joachim Clausen.
He lets the pig in and she immediately starts gnawing on the rack. The photographer tries to call the pig to her beautiful background: ’Øffe’, she says enticingly.
It turns its ass to the flash and tries to investigate what’s behind the cloth.
’The pig is a lovely animal. It doesn’t take much to entertain it,’ says Joachim Clausen. He’s enjoying himself.
’But pigs are also destructive as hell. They gnaw everything to pieces.’
It’s true. 1069 bites our rubber boots. In the carpet. In the rack. After an hour and a half photo session, the photographer may have gotten one good portrait shot.
I ask Joachim Clausen what the worst thing is that I can write in the article.
’That my pigs are not well’, he replies promptly.
’We think we treat them the best we can. After all, a pig that doesn’t thrive doesn’t grow.’
When opponents criticise conventional farming, it is often because they put their own feelings into the pigs, he believes.
’But the pigs are just living here and now. This pig doesn’t know it’s going to be slaughtered. If it did, it probably wouldn’t be so happy.’
But first it has to reach a weight of around 115 kilos. That will take another month. Joachim Clausen promises to call when my pig is ready.
The gifted pig
While I wait, I contact Vibeke Pihl, sociologist and post-doc. at the Department of People and Technology at Roskilde University. Her research has revolved around pigs for almost a decade, and in 2014 she wrote her PhD on the pig’s path from farm to biomedical laboratory. In this context, she did fieldwork in an experimental barn.
’In my fieldwork, I was quite impressed by how good pigs are at learning and tuning into humans,’ she explains.
In one experiment, a researcher had to get the pigs to stand still with their front legs on a crate so they could get nasal spray. They quickly learned. The animal carers also took the pigs for daily walks.
’In many ways you can have a relationship with them in the same way you can have with a dog.’
Vibeke Pihl is deeply fascinated by the way pigs and our lives are inextricably linked in Denmark.
’The pig is completely wrapped up in our national identity - it has the status of a malleable resource,’ she says. For not only do we use pigs as production animals, but also as laboratory animals and, in recent years, as a source of biomass. All of this has a huge impact on our national economy and our understanding of how to find solutions to societal problems of hunger and disease. In addition, pigs are used in an almost endless range of other products because the remains of dead pigs’ carcasses from both slaughterhouses and animal experiments are recycled.
’And physiologically, we are also extremely similar to pigs,’ says Vibeke Pihl.
That’s why it’s so good for medical trials. It walks on four legs, yes, but its digestive system and brain are very similar to ours. The pig is highly intelligent, and research has also shown that it is good at solving tasks:
’You can find thousands of videos online of people with pigs who have learned how to do jigsaw puzzles or take out the rubbish,’ says Vibeke Pihl.
She also noticed that the pigs in the experimental barn showed care for each other when they were stunned:
’This shows a rather complex psychology.’
’But how can we make ourselves eat the pig?’, I ask.
’I’ve wondered about that too,’ replies Vibeke Pihl.
’The point is that very few of us come into contact with live pigs in our daily lives. When we see it in the supermarket, we don’t see a cute little pig, but a piece of meat.’
She doesn’t think I’m jaded if I can sink my teeth into my pig at Christmas. But her research shows that once we develop a relationship with the animal, things get more complicated. She also experienced this at the experimental farm, where the animal keepers had a different relationship with the pigs than the researchers. They named the pigs, which the researchers did not approve of.
’It is an ideal in science that researchers should not have biases in terms of preferences or feelings, but this can happen if you develop a relationship with your subjects.’
But the animal watchers didn’t care. They called one of the fast pigs ’Speedy G’, while an extremely fat and lazy pig was named ’Buddha’. And then there was ’Sausage’ - who got his name ’because you couldn’t tell the difference between head and butt’, as Vibeke Pihl says. Pølse was an annoying pig who always got angry if you introduced new things too quickly. In other words, the pigs each had their own personality and preferences. These were emphasised by their names.
’Does your pig have a name?’ asks Vibeke Pihl.
’Not yet.’
’I think you should consider that’.
For her thesis, Vibeke Pihl wrote a chapter in which she followed a pig through the entire experimental production. The animal keepers called it Bettie, and the chapter was called ’Bettie’s Journeys’.
’When you name the pig, it moves from being a mass body to a person with a unique biography. The chapter on Bettie has made a deep impression on everyone who has read about her.’
Live animals in the truck
On a cold, rainy day in November, it’s been 160 days since my pig was born, and today she’s leaving it again. Jan, the driver from Dansk Grisetransport, has arrived with his truck and put the ramp at the end of the barn.
I let 1069 out into the corridor for one last pig walk. She immediately examines everything around her and sticks her nose vibratingly into the air. The fat at her flanks ripples a little as she runs, but when you pet her, she feels muscular.
’She’s plenty big,’ says Joachim Clausen, giving her a tap with a tattoo hammer bearing the farm’s stamp so the slaughterhouse knows the pigs come from his farm. He also marks her with a blue zigzag pattern on her back so we can distinguish her from the other 190 pigs to be slaughtered today.
Joachim Clausen drives the pigs up the ramp to the truck. They squeal and some splutter on the slippery ramp. Others sit down stubbornly and have to be pushed forward by hand.
’No, Trunte,’ says Anita to a pig trying to run the other way.
The pigs are loaded in sections so they don’t topple over between each other. When a wagon load is full, the bottom moves up like an elevator to make room for another group of pigs. These then go up, and finally there are three layers of pigs in the truck. On the top floor is my pig. She lifts her muzzle over the bars and looks out as the truck drives away from the farm, heading for Danish Crown’s slaughterhouse in Ringsted. ’Live animals’ is written on the back.
’Yes. For a bit yet,’ I think.
Day 160
Fragrant food in the end
’This is a real quality pig. Nice and wide and nice and long’, says Bent Jepsen.
He is a master butcher at Danish Crown and has his 40th anniversary next year. So he must know. And it’s my pig he’s talking about. She has just walked out of the truck and into the slaughterhouse. I can’t help but feel a strange pride.
The slaughterhouse barn, where the pigs arrive, smells like any other pigsty: sharp and pungent. It is not a pleasant smell. But as Bent Jepsen says:
’It’s going to be fragrant food in the end’.
We are a whole delegation: factory manager Steffen Ahrendsen, butcher Bent Jepsen, press officer Jens Hansen, the photographer and me. Before we’ve got that far, we’ve spritzed and washed our fingers several times. We wear hairnets, helmets and several layers of clothing. Food safety is top priority.
’Has it got a name?’ asks the press officer.
The answer is still no. I haven’t gotten past 1069. Together with 16 other pigs she is let into a pen. Here the pigs are typically allowed to wait a few hours. Some go to sleep. Around the barn, veterinarians employed by the Food Administration walk around and keep an eye on things. They respond to animals that look sick or injured. The pigs are seen all the way through the process.
’In fact, it is at the slaughterhouse that it is often discovered if there is animal cruelty on a farm,’ says Jens Hansen.
After the waiting period, the pigs are let out into a long corridor in small groups. Here, an automatic divider slowly pushes them forward. 1069 walk calmly away. There is only one way. And that is forward towards a small ledge at the end of a ramp. Here, a door opens at intervals to an elevator.
It is designed like a paternoster lift, as you know it from the Danish parliament – without comparison, by the way: seven gondolas keep turning around and take turns to take in a new team of pigs. On the way, it passes a chamber where the pigs are stunned with carbon monooxide.
The door to the lift opens and my pig trundles in at the front with a vibrating snort. Four minutes later it comes rolling down a chute on the other side. Lifeless and limp.
’It’s strange to think about,’ says the photographer.
’A short time ago it was full of willpower. Now it’s as limp as a rag.’
The pig runs along a belt to a slaughterhouse worker, who grabs one of its hind legs and hangs it from a conveyor belt that runs around the entire slaughterhouse loft.
It continues towards the ’sting’. Here a man kills the pig with a single cut to the neck. He then attaches a tube to the carotid arteries, which sucks the pig’s blood into a machine. It is used for medicines and animal feed, among other things.
Smells like meat. And something else. Something sweet. It must be the blood.
’Many think this is the most brutal,’ says Steffen Ahrendsen.
’But that’s part of producing pork.’
1069 is fast approaching. Now is the time to die. One stab and it’s over. It’s going fast. I look at my watch to somehow mark the event. It is 11.32. My pig moves on quickly. Blood runs in a fine stream from the muzzle onto the floor, drawing a red trail under the running belt and on through the hall.
Day 160
Guaranteed crispy rind
The dead pigs pass through a shoeing trolley and on into a huge dryer, which scrapes off the hair. The ’hair extractor’ is the centrifuge where the carcasses roll around. After a few minutes, my pig comes tumbling out - clean, white and almost hairless. It’s hung up by its legs again and moves on to a furnace with licking flames.
’This is where the pig’s skin is tightened,’ explains Bent Jepsen.
To reach the oven, we have to cross three metres of blood-drinking pigs moving on the assembly line in the ceiling. It’s a slalom course, where you have to avoid being hit by dead pig carcasses that come running from all sides. We reach the oven door just as 1069 drives into the roaring orange sea of flames. It smells burnt.
’That’s how you get the crispy rind our pigs are so famous for,’ explains Steffen Ahrendsen.
In the next part of the slaughterhouse, men with plastic aprons line up. First, a machine drills out the pig’s asshole. Then the men cut out the intestines so they hang like an upside-down bouquet from the pig’s neck. Then the pig is sawn lengthwise into two halves, joined only at the snout. The red interior and white ribs appear, and the pig looks more and more like something from a refrigerated counter.
We stand ready to watch the pig pass by. We wait. No 1069. It feels like forever.
’I think we’ve lost her,’ Bent Jepsen finally says.
The delegation splits up in the hall. Everyone is looking. Far away, I catch a glimpse of a green ear tag
’There she is!’ I scream. Bent Jepsen spans the floor. That’s good enough. It’s her.
Bent Jepsen finds a blue string and ties it around the pig so she won’t get lost again. It looks like a ribbon.
’It’s a real marzipan pig,’ he says as he ties the knot.
Now the very bottom layer of the pig has to be briefly frozen to retain the juices of the meat, and then she has to be hung in the fridge until she has to be cut up. Before she drives away, I quickly put a hand on her rear end. Before, she was warm and furry. Now she’s cool and greasy.
Unrecognizable
The cutting of the pig a few days later takes place at the opposite end of the slaughterhouse. Here are long corridors with tiles on the walls. Trucks with boxes in full speed and big metal racks with hams in pointed formations cross the corridor. When a pig needs to be cut up into bacon, tenderloin, pork tenderloin and pork roast, the rough part of the work is done by machines, and it’s impossible for us to follow 1069 once she rolls onto the slaughterhouse assembly line.
Instead, the manager has arranged for an apprentice butcher to cut up the pig for us by hand. Dennis Rasmussen is his name, and he fetches 1069 from a huge cold store where it has hung since slaughter. The carcass is transferred to a large white tub on wheels. The legs stick up and the tail hangs over the edge. As stiff as a stick. Then we trundle off to the carving.
’The meat percentage of your pig is high,’ says Steffen Ahrendtsen, who has investigated the case. As high as 70 percent.
’A nice meaty pig’.
It is the meat percentage that determines whether a pig can be sold to the most expensive markets and end up as, for example, dried luxury ham in Italy, breast pork in Japan or breakfast bacon in England. One thing is certain: Everything gets used. Head, toes, tail and legs end up in China. Mucus from the intestines is used for blood-thinning medicines. And the slaughterhouse waste that doesn’t become animal feed ends up in a biogas plant.
’It used to be said that the only thing that went to waste was the pig’s scream,’ says Steffen Ahrendsen.
The apprentice lifts one half of the 1069 onto a large plastic cutting board. He cuts off the head first. With the head and tail, the last vestige of recognition disappears. Now the pig has to be trimmed. The apprentice uses a large meat saw, and with a whir he cuts the pig crosswise into ham, middle piece and front end. After half an hour’s work, the middle piece is transformed into a half-metre-long pork roast. He cuts the rind into wide strips and wraps the meat in plastic. The roast weighs six kilos. And that’s just one side.
’Here you go,’ he says.
The steak is placed in a nice cardboard box with the Danish Crown logo on it. Then it’s off home. I sit in the passenger seat of the car with the box on my lap, lift the lid and look inside. 1069 is unrecognisable. As we trundle out of the slaughterhouse car park, I pull out a picture from the day she was last alive. I replay a short video of the pig raising her muzzle at me in the barn, just before leaving for the slaughterhouse.
’That was then,’ I think. A few hours later, the roast is in the fridge next to the cocoa milk.
’Is that Øffe?’ my oldest teenage son asks as he opens the fridge after school and spots the vacuum-packed roast. I nod in affirmation without lifting my eyes from my phone. I’m googling ’recipe’ and ’perfect pork roast’.
A scent of Christmas
The next day, I spend hours in the kitchen getting everything ready to cook the roast. Bay leaves? Check. Red cabbage? Check. I even dig out my dad’s homemade apple jelly from the cupboard and make cucumber salad from my late grandmother’s recipe. I cut four kilos of meat and put it in the freezer for Christmas Eve.
I put the roast to rest on a roasting rack with herbs underneath and stick a roasting thermometer under the skin. It feels like a waste of life if I fry it dry or the rind doesn’t get crispy. Darkness falls and I set the table with floral napkins, my nicest dinner service and light candles. The smell of bayberries, roast beef, red cabbage and gravy wafts around the living room.
’Ouch, it smells like Christmas in here,’ says the photographer. She has come to capture the moment when I take the roast out of the oven, slice it and ladle it onto my plate. The atmosphere is almost solemn. The sword is perfectly golden and bubbling. But as I crunch it between my teeth, I remember the stab and 1069 with my muzzle down and put down my cutlery.
I pause to eat and argue with myself. I have eaten pork all my life without remorse. In a way it is hypocritical to differentiate between this pig and all the others I have put to death. After all, they were pigs once. And the pig is dead. If I don’t eat it, it has lived in vain. On the other hand, it feels cynical to eat the rind you’ve patted.
The last five and a half months of work have complicated my meal.
My youngest teenage son doesn’t have the same reservations.
’It’s really juicy,’ he says appreciatively after the first bite.
I watch as he carefree eats his way through three big slices of 1069 with gravy. And I think about the four kilos waiting in the freezer for my whole family to eat on Christmas Eve. Maybe it’s not too late to give the pig a name. To value pig life a little more. I could call her Julle.
Credits
Text: Line Vaaben
Photography: Katrine Hørup Noer & Sigrid Nygaard
Graphics: Mads Pedersen
Digital design: Karen Rosenlund
Editor: Christian Ilsøe
Head of digital stotytelling: Johannes Skov Andersen