Yummy? (NOT FOR ANIMAL LOVERS)

**If you are an animal lover and/or animal rights advocate, please do not read or look at this post**

Several weeks ago, there was a very important holy day for all the Balinese people.  It has a lot of spiritual significance, however, that will not be the subject of this post.

Everyone wakes up early on this holy day and cooks a specially prepared pig.  The dish is called lawar and it is often served with some blood poured over it.  Often, our neighbors will bring us a portion of the lawar to 'share the goodness'.  By now they know that we prefer our lawar without the blood, which is called white lawar.  The preparation for lawar begins the day before with the butchering of the pig.  This is a very festive occasion and all the men from the community get involved. 

We happened to be driving up to the mountains on the day when everyone was butchering their pigs.  The interesting thing about all of the butchering and preparation is that the whole process happens in the sewer/drainage ditches that run along the roads.  We saw over a dozen pigs at different stages of preparation. 

This brings up a sad, but funny, story... one of my favorite byproducts of the pig butchering is the 'sausage'.  It is pig intestines stuffed with all kinds of unidentifiable goodies.  I have always eaten it, enjoyed it, and intentionally not asked about the ingredients or the preparation.  

However, on the way up to the mountains, I saw the intestines being 'cleaned' in preparation for the sausage.  Remember that the men are standing in the drainage ditch for half of the butchering.  So there it was, a long pair of intestines being diligently washed out with sewer water.  Now I'm sure that during the cooking of the sausage all of the bacteria and bugs are killed, but it is not a comforting thought to know that the sausages that I so loved were just several hours before soaking in the water that came from everyone's toilets, showers, and kitchen runoff.

But I'll still eat it, enjoy it, and try to forget about the preparation...