Making sausage

Warning:

What you'll see in these pages are graphic pictures of animal slaughter.

For these farmers, this is a way of life -- the circle starts again.

Statement:

We are story-telling photo-documentarians. We provide these images as part of our work to illuminate the millennia old traditions of landed peasants.

Dealing with life, death and suffering, as these images do, they are likely to stir strong emotions in our viewers. Before judging their lives or our intentions, we invite you to explore these more thoroughly at our Romania Site.

Marioara sorts out the intestines

For those interested in the debate over Animal Rights and their use as a food source:

Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals.

and

Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy.

For more check our books page.

Ever heard making sausage was messy business?

December 1999:

Boiling the head It also smells.

Everything starts by putting the tough parts and blood organs in a pot to boil for several hours.

Petru grinding the red meat

While Marioara sorts out the intestines, Petru grinds the red meat for smoked sausage

Blowing them up

Marioara blows through the intestines to check for ruptures.

Family recipie

Petru mixes the family recipe: paprika, salt and gobs of garlic.

Intestines

The Extruder

They fill the Extruder with the raw meat mash.

Pushing on the intestines

Then, like pushing some endless condom onto Tin Man's penis, they prepare for making sausage.

Cranking Extruded sausage

Turn the crank and out comes the sausage.

Going to wash While Sanda takes the guts out to wash them before feeding them to their dog,

Petru sorts out more intestines

Petru begins sorting out eighteen meters of remaining intestines.

The whole process starts over again with a different recipe, this one using the cooked meat and lots of rice.

Washing them out
They wash out the
intestines with water

Scraping intestines

Lower intestines must be scraped to clean them. They're really tough as they stand up under the sharp edge of this knife.

Tying up the sausages

The lower intestines also need to be tied up with string, instead of just tying the ends.

Boiling the sausage

Finally they boil the sausages in pork broth.

Toba

The pig's bladder is stuffed and stitched.

All sausages

Here, the pig in processed form fills both floor and walls.

Tools of the trade

Tools of the trade await cleaning the next day.

Eating in celebration

Eating their day's labors after eleven hours of work.

Fixing the grinder

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