Ok, yo'll southern boys, or farm fellers, help me out on this one.

Back when I was a young pup, I remember a large kettle with a open fire, in the kettle went scraps of beef, mostly fat. It was brought up to a boil to render the tallow. Up to the top would float the crackings or what is called greaves.

But instead of just scraping off the cracklings from the tallow, and allowed to just drain, like pork cracklings are made, the cracklings were scraped off, and before they drained, were put into a press, like a wine press, and pressed down, to press out all of the fat.

What was left was the beef scraps that had been turned into cracklins, but pressed into what was a round 8" by 1" thick cake.

The cake was then usually used for dog food, but as a kid, that was some snack, with a bit of salt on them.

Anyone else here remember them? Or better still, where can a person get some now?

I don't have a large kettle, nor is there a slaughter house near that would have a lot of scraps a person could still make greaves.

They'd almost remind you of scrapple, but made with beef.


WuzzFuzz

Not beef. Pork cracklings are sold in local groceries here in far western KY.

IIRC about $3 / pound.

I know what pork cracklings are, Beef cracklings, also known as greaves are similar, they are scraped off the top like rendered pork skins. The pork cracklings can also be made in your oven. Cut pork skin into about 1 inch squares, the less meat the better you get them. Put pork skin on a tin platter and place it in the oven, around 300 degrees or so, When they puff up, then put them on a paper towel to dry, salt to taste...Sea salt works best...LIGHTLY.

But the beef cracklins I'm talking about, were made into cakes, and used for dog food, or eaten by us poor folks.


WuzzFuzz

That sounds like a fine cake to this old carnivore. Not something I had heard of.

__________________
Oh well, what the hell.

I hope I'm never so poor, as to have to eat that sort of 'food'. It would have some protein, but would have little other nutrition in it.

A dog (or person) fed JUST that 'food' would die from multiple vitamin deficiencies.

Trappers in the 1700's used to die this way. In the winter, all they ate was meat form animals they trapped. So, even though they were eating very well, meat all day every day, they sickened and died. it was called 'rabbit death', because the trappers ate a lot of rabbit.

Rabbits had NOTHING to do with it, of course. They died from vitamin deficiencies. The same thing happened on long voyages on sailing ships.

Sailors used to die from scurvy, which is a vitamin C deficiency. At some point, somebody discovered that eating limes prevented scurvy. So, among sailors, especially British sailors, stores of limes, or lime juice were kept, to prevent scurvy. The sailors came to be called 'limeys'.

You learn something new every day, here.

It wasn't 100% food for the dogs. Because back then our dogs were able to run loose and forage a lot on their own. Or they'd get table scraps. For us kids, it just made a crunchy home made snack..or adults. Same as pork cracklins are today..They're not meant to be eaten all the time.

When people were making beef talo, this was sort of a by product. Beef talo is the same as pork lard, only made from beef. Beef talo was used for cooking just like lard is today, some of the talo could be used for making lye soap...(That stuff was really hard on the hands and body)....Look it up...even McDonalds was using it to fry foods for a long time, before they switched to vegetable oil.

The beef scraps that floated to the top, just like pork cracklins do, but instead of just leaving them as the puffs, you know of today, we pressed them with a press, like a wine press...Maybe it was a wine press...I can't remember now, only what it had a screw down, that a person turned, and the plate???? pressed downward the more you turned the top handle, the left over fat was squeezed out from the sides. All that was left then was those fried beef scraps that were pressed into those flat round...I call them cakes.

Rendering (animal products) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I guess I'll just have to chalk this one up to another child hood memory as something that we used to do.


WuzzFuzz

http://www.foodlawment.com/downloads/greaves.pdf


No I'm not crazy, nor the only one that knows about eating greaves...I found this about greaves, read on down, about how it's made...It mentions in there about pressing the greaves, like I was mentioning.

We butchered hogs or beef back when. not much got thrown away. Since most folks don't do their own butchering any more, out on the farm, this is hard to come by now. That's why I wondered if anyone knew where a person might get some.


WuzzFuzz


Goldenlight...sometime I'll tell you a story or three what it was like growing up poor.