Everyone's got their own strange Christmas food traditions—billion-calorie cookies, devil-worshipping crab cakes—but if you're looking for a real fun time this or next holiday season, you and you family might want to consider getting a peppermint pig.
Residents of Saratoga Springs, NY apparently celebrate the season with pink pig-shaped hard candies. As the century-old tradition dictates, the delicate little pig is passed around the Christmas dinner table, and each attendee takes his or her turn smashing a piece off with a hammer to celebrate "good fortune". Brutal? Perhaps, but for a holiday that glorifies ritual tree slaughter, anything goes, and now these peppermint pigs are warming their way into homes way beyond the confines of upstate.
Local candy company Saratoga Sweets, which holds the patent on the pigs, say sales for the little guys will probably top 130,000, with online and retail orders flowing in from all over the country. And with your pigs, you can now also order peppermint pig poop as an accompaniment, because nothing says Christmas like candied fecal matter!
If you want to learn how to make your own peppermint pigs, Saratoga Sweets offers an online tutorial, or you can brush up on the story behind the seasonal swine. And if you're planning to incorporate the little piggies at this year's Christmas feast, check out this video of people beating the hell out of their holiday pigs from a few years back:
