Chitterlins

We met Robert Web or Robert met us outside our little rented farm house several miles from Plymouth NC. The house was a single story clapboard rambler thirties vintage that had been added onto over the years. The floor plan was in the shape of a J. The kitchen main entrance mail living area would be at the top of the J with a hall leading past a bedroom across from the bathroom. At the end of the hall was a living room we converted into a large bedroom. To the right of the living room was another door that led to an added on bedroom through which another bedroom and bath was located.
I bunked in the bedroom off the living room. The only one with air-conditioning.
We eventually got a cook who prided himself on southern cuisine.
Well we were trying everything southern. They say that in the south people eat every part of the pig but the squeal. Fancy restaurants in Atlanta serve pig ear sandwiches. Fried pig tails and pickled pigs feet are all fair game. We hadn’t tried chitterlings yet and our new cook was talking them up big.
“Fried up crispy with eggs over easy on grits with salt and pepper,mmmm. Only Northerners eat grits with milk and sugar or syrup, even Karo syrup.
One of the boys picked up a shrink wrapped pan of chitterlings and it was time for the cook to stand and deliver.
Usually cookie started breakfast around three thirty AM so we could be up dressed fed and at the unit by daylight and finish the bulk of our work as early in the hot humid day as possible.
Now the work we did was hard work and the sleep of a laboring man is sweet for sure. It took a major event to wake these guys early and cookie was about to deliver. Around four AM he started cooking up the chitterlings and the smell woke the guys in the living room. They it turns out weren’t to hot on the idea of chitterlings to begin with. After all the reason the pig parts smelled like pig crap when cooked was because they were partly pig crap. Pig intestines will always be pig intestines boiled, baked or fried.
My fellow connoisseurs of southern comfort slept soundly in the air-conditioned room awoke rested and ready to try a new treat. The evil smell had abated we cleaned up, dressed and chowed down on the tasty strangely lean and different chopped bacon sort of chitterlings. As a matter of fact we copped extra rations from the guys who had smelled them cooking and had spoiled their appittite.
We started working for Robert Webb because the details of our insurance and private contractor’s info hadn’t been processed yet. Robert stopped by the day before and introduced himself. He said he would like to have us over to his house sometime and that he would see us the next day out on the unit.