What are the uses and purchase value of pig trotter shells?

Summary: What are pig trotter shells used for, and what do buyers purchase pig toenails for?

When I was little, my family always raised a few pigs. Every year around the Spring Festival, the family would start making arrangements to sell the pigs, and in the end they would keep one back for a local butcher to slaughter and then split it with the neighbors, who each bought a share, to keep for eating over the New Year. I was still small then, and every time a pig was slaughtered, the children were not allowed to go near.

I remember that back then nobody came around specifically to collect these pig toenails, and it was usually my father who cooked the meat dishes at home. I remember the butcher often paid no attention to the toenails on the trotters. Every time we cooked pig trotters, my father would first scald them with hot water and wait a while before he could pull the pig toenails off with pliers. But nobody specially collected the toenails that were pulled off; most were just thrown away. Sometimes curious children would play with them, but they did not smell very good.

Later I remember hearing the neighbors say that pig trotter shells, dried in the sun and then burned to ash, could treat chilblains. The neighbor's aunt was the kind of person who commonly got chilblains, and she was always trying all sorts of folk remedies. I remember my mother also told the aunt that sesame flowers could treat chilblains, and later my mother specially saved up our pig toenails and took them to the aunt. But whether they actually worked, I have no idea.

So what exactly are pig toenails used for?

Because not many people in our area raised pigs, usually just a few per household. Now even fewer people raise pigs, because they smell bad and are dirty, and the family labor force generally goes out to work. Nowadays very few people raise pigs at home. So I have never heard of anyone specifically buying pig toenails.

Out of curiosity, I specifically searched online for information about the price of pig trotter shells, and found that there are actually quite a few merchants selling these pig trotter shells, and the price is not as expensive as I imagined, about 20 yuan per jin. At this price, it seems that buying pig trotter shells should be fairly easy. Personally, I think not many go to rural areas to buy them; most buyers probably purchase them from slaughterhouses.

Pig trotter shells are actually not very miraculous things; they merely have a certain medicinal value, and it is precisely this certain medicinal value that makes some people buy pig trotter shells. The main effects of pig trotter shells are to resolve phlegm and relieve wheezing, and to detoxify and promote tissue regeneration. In fact, these are not particularly outstanding medicinal effects in traditional Chinese medicine, and because they are relatively easy to obtain, the price is probably not too high.

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