The Chitlin Circuit

People don't believe me when I tell them about one of the local Thanksgiving traditions...chitlins.

A large part of the population where I live eat chitlins for their Thanksgiving feast. They are very particular about what kind of chitlins they want (Smithfield in the bucket, nothing else will really do). They fill up their shopping carts with 4 or 5 buckets and go off to prepare them...somehow.

Best I can figure, this all grew out of the first cold snap. In the old days, a hog would be butchered after the first freeze. It was thought that this would kill any pesky parasites the hog might be harboring and they didn't have to worry about the meat going bad while it was strung up from a tree limb being stripped out.

A farmer who could afford a hog would get some of the poorer people in the neighborhood to help with the butchering and would pay them with part of the hog, mainly the parts they didn't want like the chitlins. Sadly, for the poor people this was a real treat and since the first cold snap here usually happens around Thanksgiving, the Thanksgiving Chitlin Tradition was born.

I guess it's all about what you're used to.