[Sca-cooks] Stefan's Pig Heads

[Stefan li Rous]

Liadan replied to me with:
> >Along this line, I was rather surprised to see in my local HEB grocery
> >today, whole pig's heads for sale. Snout, empty eye sockets and all.
> >Although I think there were two pieces in the bag. Perhaps they pull
> >out the brain and other pieces. I think these pig heads must be a key
> >ingredient in some holiday hispanic dish. Tamales, perhaps?
>
> Stefan, I could have sworn we've discussed headcheese, souse and scrapple
> on the list before.

Yes, but I didn't think all of these came from a pig's head. Also, I don't
have any detailed directions. However, for those who might be interested,
here is the general description for headcheese.

> Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 17:16:28 EST
> From: LrdRas at aol.com
> Subject: Re: SC - headcheese
>
> stefan at texas.net writes:
> > I'm not exactly sure what "headcheese" is, although I've heard the term
>
> It is more or less a gelatinous mass with chunks of meat throughout that is
> sliced and served much as luncheon meat is.  It is basically made by boiling
> a pig's head with brains and tongue and all until it falls apart. You remove
> the tasty bits, discard the bones and let the whole mass cool to a gelatin
> under a weight. Depending on which PA Dutch group your background includes it
> may or may not also contain vinegar. Our branch calls the vinegar abomination
> 'souse'. :-).
>
> Ras

And the same file (organ-meats-msg) gives some period or near-period
German referances to this.

> To not be politically incorrect, someone told me
> Hispanics used the neighborhood stray cats & dogs in tamales. Didn't you
> say you are a cat or cats person?

Yes, and the Spanish cat recipe does say something about removing the
brains or it might make you crazy. So, I don't think they would have
used cat heads for headcheese. :-)

And yes, when I mentioned to Iago some of the awlful foods that had
already been  discussed here on this list, I obviously forgot to mention
the headcheese, souse and scrapple...
--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****