Certain
readers overseas (in fact the majority of them) who may have come to Eivissa
before as tourists or are planning a trip here might be slightly surprised
about this week's topic, the first of another series. Suffice it to say,
though, that even if you have visited the island many times in the past but
have never heard of the importance of pigs in traditional pagès
Eivissenc (Ibicenco peasant) culture then it is safe to say than you
have not yet touched the real Eivissa.
The fact that a tourist driving his or her rentacar along some of the more
rural unpaved roads near inhabited peasant areas of the island may commonly
see herds of sheep, less commonly herds of goats, but never any pigs, does
not mean that pigs do not exist here nor that pigs are not a part of the
traditional culture. Exactly the opposite - pigs are of great culinary and
cultural importance here, but form a part of the ancient island culture that
tends to hide itself from outsiders, and it still does so today. Pigs tend
to be kept hidden, a normal situation for objects of great value: the local
population has learnt, after over 2000 years of the island being raided from
outside for its wealth - including pigs, gold and women - that a 'low
profile' is best kept with these items.
The
Eivissenc language saying in the
title, "Ric com un verga",
refers back to wealth based upon pigs. It could be translated, I suppose, as
meaning, "As rich as a Rockefeller", or as Croesus or as Bill
Gates or whoever. In Eivissa the
term 'verga' refers to a small
whip, usually a 60cm or so long twig from an olive tree, used to gently whip
along one's pigs or one's horse as a prompter or a guide. The original Joan
March, from Palma in Mallorca, the founder of the wealthy dynasty that
founded the Banco March (March Bank) that for several generations has had
branches on the island of Mallorca and on Eivissa
(originally only in Vila/Ciutat
Eivissa/Ibiza Town), amassed his first fortune through the judicious
manipulation of the local pig market. As a Mallorcan peasant youth he was
regularly seen bringing pigs to the market in Palma, and controlling them
adroitly with his 'verga'. As his
wealth grew, so did his fame, spreading across the waters to Eivissa
where pigs played a greater cultural role in an island with fewer
resources than Mallorca.
The
typical porc eivissenc (Ibicenco
pig) was a beautiful creature, with fine black hair and a long 'furga' (snout). This long 'furga'
was particularly useful for 'snuffling' or 'truffling' out the delicious
bulbs of the plant of the same name. These bulbs, growing a few inches
underground from the plant's base, were the pig's favourite food.
Unfortunately these fine black-haired pigs are almost non-existent on Eivissa today, although some are still kept and bred on the
neighbouring small island of Formentera. The reason for their relatively
recent disappearance on Eivissa is due to a slight misunderstanding over the
exaggerated value of different types of pigs available from the Spanish
mainland. The black-haired pigs were widespread on Eivissa
until the 1950s but by that time the island's isolation was beginning to
break down, slightly more money was beginning to circulate, and it was then
possible (or more easy) to import different types of pigs from the Spanish
mainland. The island began avidly importing large white pigs, a commoner
variety and one, which fattens up more easily. This breed - and others -
rapidly replaced the traditional variety and a smaller red-haired variety.
Islanders thought this would produce a 'pig boom', but older pagès
now recognize that this change may not necessarily have been for the better.
It was a change of 'quantity over quality' - common throughout the world.
For those old enough to remember eating the local variety, the former meat
and products were tastier than those from imported pigs and their new
descendants. The long black-haired pig's meat was firmer and sweeter. Some
were bred specifically on Formentera for selling to Eivissa.
In the typical Eivissa way, this
led to a certain amount of 'pig smuggling' between Formentera and Eivissa,
either to avoid 'pig taxes' that might be imposed by the 'Senyors
de Vila' ('the masters from the Town') as the rural pagesos rather
disparagingly called those Ibicencos traditionally from Ciutat Eivissa, or to avoid a ban on pig transport if swine fever
had been confirmed in the islands. The pigs were smuggled by fast boat at
night from Formentera to Eivissa
(it is said sometimes the boats hid on L'illa
des Porcs - 'Pig island' - one of the numerous small islands in between
Formentera and Eivissa until there
was an easy moonlit night-time run to the southern Eivissa coast. Once reaching the coast some of the pigs would be
hidden in special caves where they would be well fed until sold. This would
all be considered illegal by the 'Senyors
de Vila' but it was a time-honoured tradition that inspired songs and
brave deeds - and lasted well into living memory. I was very pleased to
meet, in 1991, the last of the 'Contrabandistas
des porcs' (pig smugglers), a man proud of coming from a lineage of such
dashing 'businessmen-adventurers'.
On
Eivissa, pigs are not just pigs;
they have a cultural value above and beyond their nutritional value,
although the preponderance of nutrition from pigs far outweighed meat from
other sources on the island until very recently. In 1995, Josep Antoni Tur
Marí published his important study on the evolution of local cooking in the
20th century: around 1900 he estimates that 68% of meat consumed
on Eivissa was from pigs, that
figure rising to 75% on Formentera. The rest would have been from sheep,
goats, chickens, hunted birds and hares. There were, of course, no cattle on
either island. These figures would have remained relatively stable until the
1950s. He notes that 23-25% of this was fresh pig meat. This percentage
would be considered normal by any Ibicenco but might be thought slightly
unusual by readers from, say, England, where more 'fresh' meat from pigs
might be eaten. But the traditions on Eivissa
are different. Here, pigs are only killed at a certain time of the year and
the majority of products from the pig are traditionally processed in such a
way that they will then provide the main protein source for an extended
family for a whole year. This is not to say that 'bacon' (which, combined
with beans, sausages, fried eggs and white toast provide the mainstay 'Full
English Breakfast served all day' for daring English culinary explorers to
San Antonio) or 'ham' form a traditional part of the diet - no, that is from
the mainland. Most of the pig was used to produce the traditional Eivissenc forms of the sausage-like preserves so beloved of pagès
eivissenc in former times and today: sobrassada,
botifarro and botifarra. We will savour these delicacies in a later article. Here
I want to concentrate more on the pigs themselves.
Most
pigs on Eivissa today are still
raised in a relatively traditional matter - and that is why tourists driving
around the island hardly ever see them. The pigs raised to eventually
provide pagès with the preserved
protein source for the year are raised within special stone huts (often now
constructed of concrete blocks) and normally no-one outside the members of
the owner's extended family will see them. Each family guards well the
secrecy of the type and size of the pig(s) which it is fattening up for the
annual matança (pig-killing) due
to take place during February or March each year, the cool season. Ses matançes are the most important traditional annual rituals for
the pagès population of the
island, the only annual event that groups together each whole extended
family, in the family house, re-establishing family ties with those who may
now be living on the coast or in Vila/Ciutat
Eivissa. 'Richer' pagès
families might have two cycles of matançes
per year, the first taking place during a two-week period in November, when
a pig would be killed to provide fresh meat over the winter season - and
also to make preserves. The second matança
cycle in February or March provide more preserved proteins and the
collection of the animal fats, etc, so necessary for cooking purposes. These
traditional in-house matançes,
although not as common as before, still occur regularly, and still serve
their ancient function of promoting extended family solidarity and identity
as well as providing culturally important food. Such rituals are still such
an integral part of peasant life here in the islands that the official
announcement of the beginning of the annual matançes
season was even broadcast on the local Baleares islands TV news on 14th
November 1999.
The
preferred pig for a matança to
take place in a pagès house is a
male pig, although female pigs can sometimes be killed. There are culinary
and cultural difficulties with female pigs, however, as the fact that they
have monthly periods ("Se va de
lluna"), like women, poses certain problems. Ibicenco peasant women
do not work in the fields, nor cook, nor paint houses (another traditional
female activity) during the time they have their periods. This type of
prohibition is almost universal in traditionally oriented societies around
the world and it is not to be seen as a form of 'backwardness'. Most
societies around the world have - or had (our Euro-American societies have
'lost it') - such a series of prohibitions to do with female periods.
Although certain 'modern' academics or writers or scientists might say there
is no reason for such a type of prohibition, they often do so on purely
theoretical grounds, possibly never having thought to look seriously into
the topic. Producers of computers have, though, which is why women working
manually on aspects of computer chip etching production in the computer
factories are either not allowed to do their work whilst they have their
periods or have to wear special gloves. In Eivissa, if a female pig ('sa truja') is killed for a matança, she
is not killed during the time of her period - pagèsos know only too well that meat or products from a female pig
killed during her period can have a bad smell and an acrid taste, that it is
difficult to drain the blood from the pig's corpse and that the resulting
meat is itself too bloody. Therefore the killing of a truja is only done anywhere from two to nine days after the period
has finished - different areas of Eivissa
have slightly different time scales, some areas waiting two to three days,
some a week and some nine days. Moreover, during the matança itself, no Eivissenc
woman who has her menstruation, 'sa
mala setmana', will touch the
pig or anything to do with it.
Pigs
raised for a matança are daily
given special food: types of traditional flour, fava beans, dried figs,
cactus figs, etc., to make their meat sweet and to help them put on as much
weight as possible. Other pigs, usually females reserved solely for breeding
purposes, are just fed scraps. Nowadays Ibicencos can buy 'piensos',
animal food from their local Agricultural Co-operative stores, to feed their
precious pigs - and most now do so - but they acknowledge that although this
is easier than providing the traditional diet for their matança pigs, the culinary results are not as good. They say 'piensos'
make the meat and pig products blander and softer. Some of the matança
pigs grow to an enormous size. Next week we will approach their stone/cement
bloc hut and try and bring one out. You will be surprised.
With
thanks to numerous Eivissenc
friends - and pigs - and to the work of Marià Torres i Torres.
© Gary Hardy (December 1991)
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