Original subtitles

If a pig could speak to us, what would it say?

I think about it all the time,

even as an omnivore.

Especially as an omnivore.

I think a pig may have questions.

"Why did you make us like this?

We used to be wild animals.

Now, we're a human creation.

A recipe refined over 10,000 years of slow simmering.

We're different from the other animals you've domesticated.

We don't bear your burdens.

We don't give you milk or fur or rides across town.

We don't do much...

except feed you."

But feed us they do.

More than any other animal on the planet.

Salted or smoked,

simmered or seared,

transformed into a million different expressions of who we are.

In a quiet village in western Spain,

cast within a rolling sea of tiny shrubs and ancient oaks,

there lives one particular pig that has a lot to say about this.

His name is Antón.

And his journey is unlike any other in the animal world.

The story of Antón says a lot about pigs

but even more about us.

Let's go.

Get the pencils and the crayons and go back to your seats.

MONDAY, JUNE 13TH

Do you know what day today is?

- Monday. - Monday. And what do we celebrate here?

The pig of San Antón.

Yes, the pig of San Antón. And who is the pig of San Antón?

A little pig.

A piggy. Very good. Yes.

Now we will all draw the pig of San Antón.

We start by drawing the nose.

And now, we are going to draw a little ear.

A raised little ear.

Every year,

the village of La Alberca receives the gift of a pig.

Not just any pig, but a cerdo ibérico,

the famous black-footed pigs of central Spain.

The tradition of receiving a pig stretches back centuries

and once occurred all throughout Spain,

where the pig was gifted to the town's poor.

But today, it lives on only in this very special corner of the world.

Dearly beloved, may this animal whom we bless today

be of help to us.

And we, your servants, shall look to the future with optimism.

- Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. - Amen.

The pig, always called Antón,

is named for Saint Anthony, the patron saint of animals.

After being blessed by the local priest, Antón will wander the town freely,

being fed and cared for by the villagers

until the feast of Saint Antón next January,

when he will be raffled off to a lucky winner.

But, for now, Antón explores his new home and his new neighbors.

Come, handsome. Come.

Come. Come.

How handsome.

You can eat it.

Tastes so good, huh?

Tastes so good.

Pigs are very curious animals.

They think with their stomachs, but they are smart.

They are able to guess and learn things,

like how to come and go to get food.

Such a good breakfast.

- Do you want some coffee? - Yes.

How is Antón doing?

I saw him yesterday in the town square. He was around there.

He's good. He gets used to it fast when we all treat him well and feed him.

People treat him well, so he gets used to it quickly.

This ham is good.

Pigs are sociable animals.

They are animals that are as good of friends to humans as dogs.

In the end, they do give their lives for the sake of humans.

I work in the world of processing Iberian pork.

My company is Embutidos Fermín.

The story of Embutidos Fermín began in the year 1956.

Our parents were very young, and life was very difficult.

The consequences of the postwar period hit very hard here.

The people of this land looked for a way to survive,

many of them by migrating abroad.

My father had very strong ties with this land

and refused to abandon his roots.

And so, he fought to find something that could support his family

to build a life in his hometown.

He started a butcher shop along with a friend.

Neither had any clue about this world,

and soon they realized that the butcher shop couldn't provide for both families.

So, they decided

that they would let fate decide which family would keep the butcher shop.

There was a long straw and a short straw,

and whoever picked the long straw got to keep the butcher shop.

The one who didn't would relocate to France.

Both of them got their passports,

and my dad grabbed the long straw.

He got lucky and got the butcher shop.

Together with my sister Paqui, we are the second generation of this company.

And the third generation is working as well,

since my daughter Soraya is also part of it.

- Good morning. - Good morning.

Could you sign this order for Vima, please?

Yes.

We've developed the company,

and we've become Iberian pork ambassadors.

Fermín has become a source of employment,

an important one to this town.

An American butcher might divide a pig into 12 pieces.

A Chinese butcher, maybe 18.

In Spain, a real butcher breaks down a pig into 32 pieces.

A mixture of prized specialty cuts sold fresh,

and upwards of a dozen different pieces that will be salted and cured

to stretch through the seasons.

It's an ancient craft that conveys both respect and necessity,

born out of a 2,000-year-old tradition of turning a single animal

into a year's worth of eating.

As a diner, I love pig for the same reasons you do.

The tender threads of flesh.

The crispy bits of fat.

The smoky, salty, savory notes that make it so satisfying.

As a chef,

I love it because with pig you can do just about anything.

Charcuterie.

Barbecue.

Stews.

At noma, we even serve the crispy skin dipped in chocolate for dessert.

For millennia,

cooks across the world have stamped their cultures on its delicious flesh.

Here in La Alberca, there are more pork recipes than there are villagers.

The most representative element of this province is the pig.

It's one of the bases of the daily diet of every family here.

We use every part of it.

We take everything from the pig,

the pancetta, the bacon, the secreto, the lagarto.

I don't know which part of the pig is the best.

The hornazo is a traditional product of Salamanca province,

prepared with the same dough that normal bread is made with.

It also has olive oil, saffron,

and a little bit of pork fat.

This gives the dough a feeling of fluffiness and softness.

That, plus the chorizo and the loin from this region,

from the amazing pigs we have here, especially in La Alberca,

makes a majestic and perfect dough.

Faithful Christians, let us remember the death of the blessed souls in Purgatory

with an Our Father and a Hail Mary for the love of God.

One more Our Father and one more Hail Mary for those who are in mortal sin,

may His Divine Majesty take them out of such miserable condition.

The nightly incantations are meant

to keep the evil spirits at bay from the village.

One more Our Father and one more Hail Mary for those who are in mortal sin,

may your Divine Majesty take them out of such miserable condition.

There may indeed be a few ghosts hovering about the cobblestones.

The ghosts of Antóns from centuries past,

back when the pig wasn't a gift to the town's poor

but a tool for the Inquisition to determine whether Muslims and Jews,

forbidden by their religion from eating the animal,

had truly converted to Catholicism.

Why do you think so many dishes in Spain are laden with pork?

My job at the city council is to preserve this tradition.

And this year I took on the responsibility of being his caretaker.

How are you, darling?

Wake up. It is time.

Hello, love!

How are you, my dear?

I remember that on the first day, he did what he wanted, of course.

He wanted to go in one direction, and I wanted him to go in another.

Let's get rid of those bugs. Yes, darling. Let's go.

I remember how our eyes locked.

We looked at each other thinking, "What do we do?"

I thought, "Either you win or I do."

Let's leave. Let's go.

Since we had reached an impasse, I gave him a candy.

So, I gave him a sweet tooth.

What is it?

Come on, run. Let's go. Run.

There is a certain connection between the pig and me.

Let's go, love. Run.

Go, go, go, go, go!

Where are you off to?

Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!

Oh, you.

If a pig could speak, what would it tell us?

I think it might have a lot to say.

About us...

and the things we've gotten wrong.

"'You're as dumb as a pig,' you say.

But we beat monkeys and dogs

and other smart animals in tests all the time."

- This year we had plenty of acorns. - Aye, yes, plenty.

- They have all fallen to the ground. Yes. - Yes.

"We're clever, intuitive, highly social creatures.

'You're as dirty as a pig,' you like to say.

You stick us in a sty and then blame us for being dirty.

'You are a pig.'

How did that become the ultimate insult?

After all, we share most of your DNA."

Automatic and remote-controlled.

- Sure. - For next time.

When we get electricity, we will.

After you.

We should take a closer look to see if they're finished.

They may be heavy enough, but I'm not sure they're finished.

No, some of them aren't.

These are eating only acorns?

Yes.

The cerdo ibéricos that roam freely on the Fermín farm

live like few other domesticated animals, let alone other pigs.

Each of the 1,500 animals has 500 square meters of open space.

An industrial pig, by comparison, survives on just one.

It's here, throughout the fall,

where one of nature's most lavish feasts unfolds.

La Montanera.

A buffet of fallen acorns that will more than double the pigs' weight

before the winter sets in.

The resulting fat, sweet and nutty, runs like rivers through the pigs' flesh,

making it one of the most prized ingredients on the planet.

They do nothing but eat, sleep, and enjoy life.

It's something so simple and natural, and we do very little to make them good.

All of the credit goes to the pig.

I have a lot of enthusiasm for the pig.

I make traditional sweets.

I like to do many things in honor of the traditions of my native land.

So, sometimes, I make creations inspired by the pig of San Antón.

For example, the chocolate piglet,

floretas, sausages

and the chocolate nougat with ham.

When it passes by my bakery, sometimes I give him a piece of bread,

which I think is the healthiest for a pig.

But sometimes I do give him a sweet.

One year I was making macarons, a French confection.

I gave him one, and he wanted to take the bag.

He wanted the whole bag, so I had to give it to him.

The men and the visitors passing by on the street asked me,

"What is it eating?"

I said, "Macarons!"

And the pig began to eat the sweets from the shelf.

It ate all it could.

The pig spoiled everything on the shelf while I laughed.

I always identify the pig with my town,

the value of my people and our customs.

Shall we go find the piglet?

- Yes, the piglet. - To the piglet.

It's not here. Where is he? We have to look for him.

It's not here. He's hiding!

It's hiding?

From whom is he hiding? From the big bad wolf?

Do you know what piglet we're looking for?

- Antón! - Antón.

Antón!

When you think about it, it's not normal to have a pig roaming the streets,

and yet to us, it's a completely normal occurrence.

As a child you see it down the street, you chase it and feed it snacks.

"A pig lives in my town. There isn't one in yours?"

He has a bell. Have you seen the bell he has?

Yes.

When he was walking, the bell would sound,

and the people knew he was there, they knew they had to feed him.

He doesn't have ears.

He doesn't have ears? He has really big ears.

The tradition is very old,

but it was lost for several years until my grandfather began it again

as an attempt to help whichever family had a tragedy that year,

one that didn't have money to eat, or any other problem.

Because you can eat every part of the pig,

getting a pig meant you would have food for the entire year.

He's looking for his grandpa.

- Hello. - Hello.

My father advocated for the revival of this tradition.

Come, give me your hand.

When my parents were married but still very young,

their house burned down.

They were left in the street with nothing,

and they experienced the generosity of the town firsthand.

People helped them and gave them clothing, found them a house to live in,

provided food and everything they needed to start from scratch.

The piglet!

How does the piglet do?

You don't know.

No, I don't know. How does it do?

- Ah, you do know. - Yes.

Look, Santi, this is where Grandpa lived when he was little.

We lived here for about 25 years,

using the same building for the house

and the store.

That window was my room. That's where I slept.

- We used to kill the pigs on the street. - On the streets?

Here.

And then we brought them inside where we processed and divided them.

I have always been connected to them.

Animals are part of the town life and they are part of our life too.

- Antón! - Antón!

Where are you?

Now the pig is raffled, but it retains its purpose.

That feeling of helping others, of coming together as a town,

it is a small gesture, but it is something symbolic.

It is just a pig, but we're going to do something together.

I don't like to use the phrase "to kill."

"To sacrifice" may sound harsher than "to kill" to some,

but to me it actually sounds softer.

If I could go back in time,

I would probably not sacrifice animals for a living.

I don't really like it.

It is what it is. It is the life I got.

Someone has to do it. After all, we depend on them for our food.

We do our best to slaughter them in the most dignified way

so that they suffer as little as possible.

Death happens.

It's one of few certainties in life.

But how a pig dies

and how it lives

says something about us.

Death in Fermín is as quick and as humane as the end can be.

Elsewhere, in the mega factories that process thousands of pigs a day,

well, that's another story.

We live in a world where it's easy to look away.

But maybe we shouldn't. Not always.

It's uncomfortable to see an animal die.

Who wants to think about death over eggs and bacon?

But perhaps confronting reality

is one of the ways to appreciate where our food comes from.

One essential thing we can do,

regardless of how the animals lived or died,

is to cook and eat everything.

And few people do that better than the Spaniards.

Salt and time.

A recipe as old as cooking.

At its best, it's pure alchemy.

A method for extending the life and intensifying the flavor

of a volatile ingredient.

The Iberians are ancient experts of salt,

and pork is their masterpiece.

Jamón ibérico de bellota spends six weeks buried in a mountain of coarse salt.

Then it's hung in a giant aging room with thousands of other legs

for at least three years.

Over time, the salt continues to work,

pulling out the moisture in the flesh and concentrating the flavor of the jamón.

This room, this magical jamón room, is the real church in Spain.

At the end of the road, you have something extraordinary.

A concentrated bite of brilliance that honors the life behind it.

From the time the pig is born, until the ham gets to the table,

it passes through many different hands.

And us, the cutters, we are the last step of that great chain.

With our cut, we can totally ruin the work

of a great number of people who are behind it.

In the tasting and sampling of a ham, the cut is 50% of its success.

- Do you know what this is used for? - What is it?

It's to do this.

Look, look.

It is so easy. Now it is your turn, kiddo.

With both hands.

What is it for?

This thing blows air so that the fire gets started.

This way. Very good!

Look at how it now burns.

We will stay warm.

When I finished high school,

I was not planning on staying in the company.

Not at all.

I studied medicine and graduated in the year 1983.

But fate, luck-- bad or good luck,

I don't know, life,

wanted my dad to have a stroke.

Come, so that she can sit here.

Say "hello" to the baby.

He has the hiccups.

I felt the responsibility to help my father,

and you don't realize that the sum of all those days

where you were doing what you thought you needed to do take you down a path.

I cannot remember ever having decided

or making an actual decision to stay here.

But life led me here.

I practiced as a physician for three years,

and when I stopped and started staying here,

I did not miss it.

It was like this fulfilled me.

I studied to cure people and ended up curing hams.

But it's also true that I learned to cure hams first,

with my dad when I was young. When I was a kid.

I had always lived in the business, and it's something you carry inside.

His name was Fermín. I think we've taken the name far.

Who's eating meat?

So delicious!

We have gone to Japan, we have gone to China,

we have gone to the United States.

In that sense, I think he would be proud of seeing his name all around the world.

To good health, to those present and absent.

I come from a family that learned to use everything that we had.

Here we all are used to the cochifrito, the pieces of the pig that are left.

Everything that is left over.

Anyone who goes to your house can eat when there's a pig.

The serrano lemon is a traditional dish from La Alberca.

I love it because it's curious how opposite it is.

We are in a town above 1,000 meters in altitude, oriented to the north,

and we don't have lemons or oranges.

Yet our traditional dish uses lemons and oranges.

I imagine it has to do with the trade we did with other places.

La Alberca has not been marked by a single history,

but rather by the history of every Albercano that has lived here.

Hi.

Hi, guys.

- How are you? - Good.

And you?

- Good. - Really good?

All right, love. How are you?

This year, I noticed I had a lump on my breast

and had some tests done.

They detected cancer.

Advanced cancer no less, of the fourth stage.

Here you go. Help yourself to a little.

Try the cochifrito.

Do you prefer the little tail, or do you prefer this?

As always, no sauce.

I don't understand a man that likes the bread, but doesn't like the sauce.

This is contradictory.

One day, I was really tired after my chemo,

but the doctors told me that I had to walk.

So I took the San Antón pig for a walk.

I did the same every day.

We began our daily walk, but at some point I got so tired that I sat on a stoop.

Fifteen minutes later, I realised the pig had turned around and was now by my side.

Hello, my dear.

What do you want? Should we go?

Do you want to leave? Come, run!

Animals are conscious of everything.

If he takes it as something good or bad, I don't know,

but it's something he notices.

The festival of the San Antón pig will be emotional, but not sad.

We know this is what it is. We know this is our tradition.

This was a beautiful experience that I will keep for myself.

I have learned a lot from him.

There you go.

Both in life and death,

I think that at some point it's your turn to be born and to die.

You have to live life, it's why we're here.

There's no more rhyme or reason.

I don't know if animals have souls or not,

but I would almost dare to say that they might.

They have something, because of the way they interact with people.

After they die, we keep them in our memories.

That's why we have a saying that goes,

"San Antón day comes for every pig."

If I ever win the pig at the raffle of San Antón,

I'll bring it here and keep it until it dies.

I have a lot of affection and respect for the San Antón pig.

I have devoted myself to it. I owe a lot to the pig.

After seven months, Antón's big day has finally arrived.

Villagers pour into the plaza for La Alberca's most famous pig.

The San Antón Pig tradition has been a display of solidarity

throughout the centuries, and most of all, in these times.

The festival honors the village tradition of slaughtering pigs.

It's a day of festivities that ends in a raffle.

The winner will decide Antón's fate.

But, for the residents of La Alberca,

the sense of celebration and sacrifice remains.

Thank you so much for helping uphold this tradition.

This is what defines us.

And this is what makes us unique to the world.

Grateful for the food and attention,

Antón has been blissfully unaware of the other side of the bargain.

Until today.

Maybe it's the crackle in the air.

Maybe it's the plethora of pork being devoured across the village.

Maybe it's the crowd.

Hundreds of humans anxiously awaiting the winning raffle number.

Now's the time! Time for the raffle!

Everyone, have your tickets on hand. Let's see who gets lucky!

Or maybe this is the year Antón might be saved.

4584.

If Antón could speak, here on his last day,

what would he say?

He might say something like this,

"You and me, we're more alike than you think.

I don't choose how I die. Neither do you.

But I don't choose how I live either.

I don't ask for much, but if I could, I'd only ask this,

'let it be a decent life.'"