PIGTALES & A LOBSTER

When I first came to Indonesia I thought I might get a chance to catch a pig...now I don't want to (although I have thought about killing the neighbors pigs because they wake me up in the morning). During the last two weeks in the village of Hiliotalua I have eaten enough pig for two lifetimes.

In Nias the pig is the livestock of choice: they slaughter pigs for parties, they trade pigs for dowry's at weddings, and they raise pigs to make money. In fact at the local restaurant in the village, although there are chickens running around everywhere, you cannot order chicken; only pig. This is because chickens are bred for cockfighting, and they gamble money on the winner, so why would you eat something that makes an income for you?

The pig itself is only served in a soup bowl, and it has chopped up pieces of everything in it (kind of like a hotdog but not ground up)! You have a choice of eating just the pigfat, the skin, the liver, the intestines, or ocasionally a real piece of meat...I have had to do some heavy duty picking at the soup just to get fed. So much for bacon... The pictures were taken when I was living in Aceh, wild porkers that fed near our house and scared the dickens out of us while walking home at night.

In other news, I finally caught a sizable lobster last weekend while snorkeling! I actually found a lobster hotspot, there were more where this one came from, but I ran out of time to get them. It was quite good with garlic butter...mmmmmmm lobster.