Le Pied Du Mont Boucherie: An Awakening of Family, Earth, and Spirit
“Boucherie” is a French term meaning “butcher shop.” When we use it in the United States, we’re referring to a communal pig butchering. The family or community comes together to prepare a pig to feed everyone for the rest of the year.
Nothing new. This tradition has deep roots across the South. In Louisiana, particularly South Louisiana, which was colonized by the French, it’s still referred to as a boucherie. In the Low Country, especially among the Gullah Geechee, it was just called “hog killing time.” In the first part of Margaret Walker’s Jubilee, which takes place in the mid-1800s in Georgia, the overseer wrote to his employer that “last fall or rather winter, we killed 65 or 6700 [pounds] of fat pork—50 hogs at one killing…” It’s an all-day event.
Boucheries take place in the colder months for a few reasons. First off, if it’s hot outside, that animal gon’ start rotting real fast. Second, the pig is fattened all year and by winter, it’s ready. And we needed that “meat on our bones,” as our elders called it, to get us through the cold. Immediately after the butchering, you had all kinda fresh meat for immediate meals. Then you’d smoke and salt other cuts that would last through the year to flavor our red beans, lima beans, butter beans, field peas, black eye peas, collard greens, mustard and turnip greens, but also to help make a little stretch into a lot with some added protein. In true waste-not-want-not spirit, none of the animal goes to waste.
I experienced all of that at Le Pied Du Mont Boucherie on Comfort Farms in Milledgeville, Georgia. Le Pied Du Mont is annual fundraiser festival to help cover expenses for Comfort Farms, which is the first Acute Crisis Sustainable Agriculture Center for Veterans in this country. They help veterans in crisis heal through community and through Mama Nature. Every year, the boucherie is centered around a different culture. This year, it was Africa.
I got there Friday afternoon; about a third of the people had shown up. That gave me a chance to a get a “lay of the land.” I also wanted to participate in the sweat lodges (but missed it). On Friday afternoon, they had one just for women. On Saturday morning, they had one just for vets. They ran it back on Sunday, but I’d already left. We had a potluck Friday evening, so most folk there were prepping for that. We went from a third to about half by that time. Everything was good, but the star of the show for me was a cow foot soup that Jon Jackson, the founder and owner of Comfort Farms, made.
It was 30-50 degrees the whole weekend, and it rained off and on, so it was wet the whole time, but we were covered, there were beaucoup bins of fire going, and plenty food, spirits, and walking to keep us warm. I ain’t a fan of the cold at all, especially the wet cold, but I enjoyed every second of this event. I felt so…free. Very similar to how I felt in Senegal.
I did the opening ceremony at 7 on Saturday morning. Chairs in a circle, fire in the middle, and Rodney Mason, an incredibly talented and knowledgeable drummer from White Castle, Louisiana, sat behind me. It was dark, cold, rainy, but still so beautiful. The sun rose while I kraked teet. The title of my speech was “We All Cousins: A Re-Awakening of Family, Earth, and Spirit.” In it, I made clear the importance of slowing down, caring for ourselves and each other, and recognizing the sacred relationships that bind us together across time, ancestry, and cultures. I shared quotes, beliefs, traditions, and symbols from West Africa like sankofa, ase, libations, call and response, Malidoma Patrice Somé explaining how the East passes time and the West measures it, and the notion that our breaths and heartbeat impacts how we experience life. I tied that in with quotes, personal experiences, and traditions from the American South. Because the South is as African and as Indigenous and as slowed down as we gon’ get in this country.
After my opening ceremony, everybody got busy cooking. From 10:30 that morning ’til 6 something that evening, different chefs presented their themed meal. Amanda Stanfield, for instance, made a spiced baobab shrimp with creamy rice grits. We were served small plates because it was a lot of food to be had over the course of the day, but I couldn’t stop eating that one. Chef Kenyatta Ashford showed out with a red red stew made with sea island peas instead of black eye peas and coconut rice. He’s a New Orleans native, and NOLA and Ghana married beautifully on that plate. The stew was gone by the time I went for seconds, but I took more of that rice back to the crib and ate it with my eyes closed. Jasmine Smith made jerk chicken over rice and peas, and blew everyone’s mind with how much bay leaf she used and how deep her flavors went. A group of Zulu dancers from South Africa made a sausage that was so good I ain’t care that parts of the pig that I typically don’t eat were mixed up in it. Egusi stew with fufu. Okra purloo. Puff puffs. Senegalese dibi. Etc. We ate GOODT!
There was always so much going on at one time that it’s almost impossible to catch everything. Think: breakout sessions. All good though. You just link up with somebody later on to exchange recaps. For instance, I missed a walk in the woods, but caught a presentation on how meats were traditionally salted, cured, and preserved. It wasn’t just talking; the salted meat was right there on the table. We got to feel it, smell it, and ask whatever questions came to mind. I missed the Zulu dancers, but I enjoyed Camylle Coley, the Geechee founder of Siwani Spirits, a likka made with Carolina Gold Rice, talking about the people and place that raised her. That night, everyone gathered around various fires and deepened their connection with one another. I bounced between groups: the Chicago crew, as I called ‘em, my Louisiana folk, and my Casamance crew (Jon, Amanda and her partner Ozzy, Kenyatta, and Jasmine).
Saturday and Sunday felt like Mardi Gras day: early morning and all-day drinking, smoke in the air from all the grills, the generosity of folk you don’t know, and beaucoup storytelling, dancing, and laughing.
Around six Sunday morning, we gathered around the most well-constructed campfire I’ve ever seen. A few men were posted up with flags. This part, I soon learned, was to honor the vets and show us the true mission of the whole thing. A man did a roll call and we also did a moment of silence for those no longer with us. Vets were called forward and the audience had no clue what was said but a few walked off teary-eyed. Jon Jackson talked about the sacrifice of veterans, the purpose of Comfort Farms, his personal struggles, and our interconnectedness.
Bryan Kyzar, a Choctaw brother from Thibodaux, Louisiana, prepared us for the next big part: the actual killing of the pig. He told us what was going to happen, gave us a heads up on the danger that could potentially happen, requested we respect the pig with no photos or videos during the ending of its life, and re-grounded us in the gratitude necessary for the life that was being sacrificed for our sustenance. The trained “kill team” lined up in front the trailer, which held the pig, and the team was smudged with a bundle of sage to clean their energy. A woman started singing Amazing Grace and it began. There was a short-lived struggle, then it was over. The experience for me marked a list of dualities: symbolic and literal, ancestral and present, and, of course, life and death. A group were called to serve as pallbearers, if you will, carrying the pig from the trailer to the processing table.
We formed a procession, which took my mind back to New Orleans. The mainline was the band, led by Bryan and Rodney, followed by me, Jasmine, and a couple others. We were upfront, and our second line was behind us: the flagmen, the pallbearers, and everyone else in attendance. The mainline sang “Indian Red,” a call and response that’s traditionally sung at the beginning and at the end of gatherings of Black Mardi Gras Indians in New Orleans:
Bryan and Rodney would start off with “Madi cu defio, en dans dey, end dans day.” That roughly translates to “We’re going into the wilderness.” Then we’d chant in response, “Indian Red, Indian Red.” Then again and on:
Madi cu defio, en dans dey, end dans day
(Indian Red, Indian Red)
We are the Indians, Indians, Indians of the nation
The wild, wild creation
We won’t bow down
On that dirty ground
Oh how I love to hear him call Indian Red
I’ve got a Big Chief, Big Chief, Big Chief of the Nation
The wild, wild creation
He won’t bow down
On that dirty ground
Oh how I love to hear him call Indian Red
Downhill, we were met by a man in kilt who took over with a bag pipe while the second line caught up and Winnie (the pig) was lifted on the processing table. Immediately, the processing got started. She was sprayed with water to be cleaned, covered with burlap sacks then poured with boiling water to soften the skin, then whoever wanted to came up and handpicked the hair from the skin. Kids were involved too. Once most of the hair was removed by hand, they went in with a knife, which required skill to clean the skin without slicing or puncturing it. They gutted it then broke it all the way down into various cuts of meat. Meanwhile, we were served hot breakfast, along with king cake, sweet potato bread, and fresh coffee.
I drove off around 10:30 Sunday morning with two thoughts: 1) I’m coming back next year (with rain boots, not Uggs) and bringing my children, and 2) If an apocalypse were to happen in my lifetime, I’m coming straight to Comfort Farms.