Anonymous Tue May 23 19:50:37 2006

***See Directions***

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 an

y 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 \