INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

1.Have the slaughter-house clean the hawg but have them leave on the head,
all feet, and tail (a cap goes on the tail.)  Also tell them not to damage
the ears (some slaughter-houses think they have to suspend the hawg by
grabbing them with some sort of hanging device around the base of the ears,
but we have found that they can do this without harming the ears.) Also, if
you can remember, have them prop the mouth open with a stick because an
apple must go in the mouth, and most humans are not strong enough to open
the mouth for this purpose. 2.Hawgs in the weight range of 8O-12O pounds
dressed (where dressed means a hawg that has been cleaned but has the head,
feet, and tail attached.) usually cook best. We've cooked hawgs as large as
396 pounds dressed, but we don't recommend it. The amount of meat per
person will depend on the group.  An all-men group will consume a good bit
more than a mixed group, particularly if the people in the mixed group have
never attended one of these.  If they have attended one previously and
found that the hawg didn't kill 'em, then they will eat more. We suggest
one pound of dressed hawg per person. 3.We do not dig a pit in Mississippi
due to the clay.  Build a pit of concrete blocks two blocks high, five
blocks long, and three blocks wide (for one hawg) on flat ground or
slightly sloping ground which will help drain the grease away. This takes a
total of 32 blocks. If you are short a few blocks, you can get by with 28
blocks by making the pit four blocks long. 4.Line the bottom of the pit
with freezer foil, not regular aluminum foil as it is too thin. 5.Spread
out a few bricks (five or six) in the bottom of the pit. 6.Place a fine
steel grate (or fine wire mesh) on the bricks in the bottom of the pit.
This will prevent large grease fires if you pay attention and immediately
put out the small fires which start when grease drops down on the hot
coals.  (Doss likes to use a water (squirt) bottle for this. I think that's
cheatin' and should be done by using the small coal shovel to spread the
coals away from the small fires.) 7.Place the rods across the top of the
blocks with another piece of fine steel grate on top of the rods. The hawg
will go on top of this grate. (Actually we now use a steel grate that has
long lengths of small sized angle-iron down each side that reaches across
the pit and the hawg goes directly on this grate.) 8.When the hawg arrives,
start four or five pounds of charcoal in the charcoal cooker. (This cooker
is used only to get the coals ready to place under the hawg.) 9.To prepare
the hawg do the following:  Rip-out the kidneys and any extra tubes, etc.
(like the aorta) that the hawg will no longer need. Take the single bladed
ax and hammer and start splitting the backbone so the hawg will lay flat on
the grate.  (This method of cookin' is called butterfly cookin', so you
want to open him up so he will lay-out (like a flyin' squirrel).)DO NOT CUT
THROUGH THE SKIN or you will have BIG-TIME problems later on. In fact,
don't cut the skin in any way, or poke any holes in the skin. After you get
the hawg laid-out, the apple is next.  Have your stoutest guy or gal pull
the mouth open and stick an apple in it.  I have seen this done once. If
you have no Paul Bunyan around, use item 11 in the equipment list. The
apple is necessary because he will bite the apple when he is done. 10.After
the hawg is prepared, lay him belly down on the grate. Place a nice hat on
his head between his ears, shades on his eyes, and an Ole Miss baseball cap
on his rear end.  The hawg won't cook without these items. 11.Now take
pictures with the bosses up front and the real workers in the rear, or
better yet with the real workers not even in the picture. The reason for
the pictures is that all night long you will swear you are getting nowhere
in cookin' this hawg, but 24 hours later you can prove you started with a
raw hawg.  The reason for the bosses being up front is because they will be
there anyway. besides, this may encourage them to pay for everything, and
they are of no use for anything else anyway. 12.You are ready to start
cookin` now.  Use the small coal shovel to place 2 to 3 coals under each
ham and each shoulder.  (NO MORE COALS THAN THIS!) 13.You will now start
getting verbal abuse about how the hawg won't cook, it will be raw, any
fool would know better, etc, etc.  Tell them fine, they don't have to eat
any of it tomorrow.  Then replenish the charcoals you took out of the
charcoal cooker and head for the beer cooler. (You only have to start the
charcoal once. After the first time, simply spread the hot charcoal out so
that when the charcoal gets hot, it is about time to put more coals under
the hawg.  I would guess this works out to be about every 3O to 4O minutes.
More on this in instruction number 16 below.) 14.Say you want to eat the
hawg(s) at 5 P.M. on a Saturday.  (All that follows relative to time will
be based on this assumed eating time. For any other eating time apply a
suitable forward or backward shift operator.) We usually pick the hawg up
and get him to the site by at least 4 P.M. on Friday. You should be able to
get him stated cookin' by 4:3O or 5:OO P.M. on Friday. The hawg is to be
turned over only once.  He will probably need to be turned over on his back
between 8 A.M. and 1O A.M. on Saturday at that "moment-of-perfection," and
I don't know how to describe to you what that
continued in part 2

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