I didn't want to usurp Rusty's food thread, so I started this one.


I like head cheese and every now and then i have to get a fix.
Went to a local market in Lorain, OH, named Fligners. They have very good meats, vegetables, and specialty items.
We bought 5 or 6 pounds of their home made garlic sausage, which we really like, and then I decided to get some head cheese.
Bought 1 1/2 pounds of it, rye bread, lettuce, some garlic balogna, and other grocery items.
Came home and made myself 2 sandwiches for lunch. Wife won't eat the head cheese, but that's ok, more for me.

I like head cheese also, but a good liver sausage may beat it!

Well, I've heard of it but was not familiar with what exactly head cheese is, so I looked it up:

"Head cheese (Dutch: hoofdkaas) or brawn is a cold cut terrine or meat jelly that originated in Europe. It is made with flesh from the head of a calf or pig (less commonly a sheep or cow), typically set in aspic, and usually eaten cold, at room temperature, or in a sandwich. Despite its name the dish is not a cheese and contains no dairy products. The parts of the head used vary, and may include the tongue and sometimes the feet and heart but do not commonly include the brain, eyes or ears. Trimmings from more commonly eaten cuts of pork and veal are often used, with gelatin added as a binder..."

Head cheese - Wikipedia

Well, I am somewhat relieved to read the brain and eyes aren't commonly used. Wouldn't mind ears, I s'pose.

Head cheese tastes a lot better than it sounds.

Sorry, the damage has been done. Can't make the mental image go away.

For all of you who enjoy head cheese, you can have my portion. No thanks necessary!

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Dan
Ps 96 SWCA 2930 SWHF 524

Yep, I'll have to pass on the head cheese.

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No baby we aint

Made it as a kid at hog butchering's. Good stuff...

Along with liver pudding...

Souse....Pickled pigs feet, knuckles, lard and cracklins...

Older people used everything but the squeal...Would have used that if they could catch it...

It's best not to look up any kind of lunch meat, sausage, wieners, or any of the "meats" usually found in the deli dept. If it tastes good, eat it and pretend it's rib eye. I do eat braunschweiger once a year or so, and I will never look at what throwaway guts it's made from.

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Waiting For The Sun.

If you think that head cheese sounds bad you sure don't want to check Jello out.

It’s getting harder to find good head cheese. The stuff offered at most chain grocery stores around here are pretty inferior to the head cheese offered by independent butchers. Those guys are hard pressed to keep their doors open.

The best source is a good kosher deli. The one my family used for many years finally closed when the owner and wife passed away years ago. I periodically drive by the old deli location and remember the wife and husband sitting behind the display case when customers came in. Place looked empty until the wife popped up.

Sounds as appetizing as toe jam.

^^^What he said.

Definate 10 on my disgustometer. Could be worse, though. This subject could've been about haggis, scrapple, or casu marzu

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The Last Standing Knight

Hi Bill...GREAT topic...it brings back fond memories of my Dad...he used to absolutely love head cheese...we used to make it when I was a kid when we butchered...he would sit there at the table and I swear he thought he was in Heaven...sounds like you...my 2 daughters look at me very strange when I tell them about my childhood butchering days...I don't think they believe me...I never acquired a taste for head cheese...kind of a change of subject, but my Mother used to tell me that when she was young she had a blood disorder and when they would butcher pigs, they would have her catch the blood in a cup and drink it...the Doctor at the time told them to do this...she told me she had a hard time drinking it...oh well it was nice that you brought back memories for me...Thanks Bill...Roger

My ex-B-I-L ate lots of it from the East end of Kentucky. It was always on the spicy side for me.

Ivan

The building block of all slurried meat products.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

"Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made,"
Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898)

Not even if a gun was held to my head.

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Who are those guys?

These exotic/trash foods are really quite good, though maybe not good for you to eat on a regualr basis, but I'm no expert. Occasional consumption of these foods is probably fine. I doubt any of them are as unhealthy as eating fast foods and some people eat that stuff often.

Had Homemade when I was a kid.
Never had any Store Bought.
It’s not necessarily one of those old memories that I long to reproduce.
Now My Mother’s Fried Chicken -
The Best I ever had.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

My father liked all of that disgusting stuff like blood pudding , head cheese, pickled pigs feet, Braunschweger, etc. He was never successful in getting me to join him, but he tried. We lived in a predominately German community with several small slaughterhouses that made them in house. Lots of other meats I won't touch either like veal and lamb. I have watched too many lambs and calves get slaughtered when I was a kid.

Yum, yum! Just like mama used to make! You should have tried some of her sphincter stew! Ah can smell it now...

Just the name reminds me of the guy rescued from a desert island. When asked how he had managed to survive, he said he lived on berries and cheese. When further queried, he invoked the Fifth.

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Formerly Model520Fan

People that have never had head cheese are freaked out by the description they read on the internet . Most of the time those are not accurate anyway . They probably eat things that are way more disgusting and don't realize it .

Our local German butcher makes vinegar souse in addition to regular souse. I usually buy a 1/2# of each in addition to blood tongue and braunschwager. A dozen Landjaeger for snacking on the ride home.

grandma made homemade head cheese... it was ok... not a favorite... but jaternice, blood sausage, braunsweiger, liverwurst etc.. count me in... the most cardiac warning sandwich I ever had was a grilled braunsweiger & cheese on rye... so good... late father loved scrambled eggs & calf brains... again, not my thing... an open mind is a wonderful thing.. bon appetite

Calf brains were good eating, but sort of a delicacy and we didn't have them often (in the '50s). I'd like to try them again with a dose of Tabasco, but haven't seen them in a grocery store for decades. Perhaps there's a good reason.

One thing I see at the local supermarket is chicken paws, actually chicken feet. Popular among the Hispanic population but I have no idea how they are prepared and eaten. While I lived in Laredo 30 years ago the supermarkets sold entire cattle heads. They were used in making Barbacoa, something else I have never eaten. Many restaurants there had eyeball and brain tacos on their menus. Laredo was a different world in many ways.

My mom made both head cheese and minced meat. Her minced meat pies
contained real meat, unlike today's store bought. Rendered lard and I
would eat my fill of cracklins, again not like today's pork skins.
Back in the day I had several meals of pickled pig feet and beer.

Now that stuff I can pass on eating.

Head cheese just ain't a happenin' here...yeah...nahh...

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Life Member GOA and NRA

You are right, they used everything. I can remember my grandparents butchering a hog. The hog head was on the kitchen table getting every last bit of meat off. They made some kind of sausage out of it and served it for breakfast with oatmeal. Very good! Also blood sausage and cracking from rendering lard..

AAHHHH............A souse sandwich!

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S&W Accumulator

My dad loved the stuff. Always said: "It's so good and no part of the animal is wasted." Yeah, he was "green" long before it became fashionable. Joe

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Behavior Creates Destiny

Well I’d rather her see the these than “bone in” pork rectums

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Forum consigliere

Kentucky boy here, I remember hog killings at my grandmother's. Loved them cracklins!

My mom used to buy head cheese when I was a child. I told her I didn't like it. Mom kept buying it. I now have nightmares.

I remember homemade head cheese when we butchered a hog on the ranch. I liked it. Probably better than the overly processed foods we now consume in quantity.

I worked in a slaughterhouse. When a old emaciated or sick diseased animal came through the line, the standard joke was "Take good care of this one, boys. She'll be in your lunch box next week." I can't eat bologna to this day.

No one has mentioned Rocky Mountain Oysters?

I ain't eating no souse Head cheese blood liver brain anything. And I grew up at critter killings sausage scrapple po'k chops ham etc. Don't eat guts. And my father was a Chesapeake waterman(me too). I hadda eat seafood. wonder who was the 1st idiot to eat slippery, slimy **** from a oyster shell. Or a crab...what??? somethin that looked like a spider and would bite you when you P***** it off?Oh and ...snappin turkle...oh yeah...They would hunt ya down to eat you... I know...caught hundreds of 'em. Nah...I went and caught them so I could sell 'em so I could get REAL food...vegan things...like rabbit skwerl,quail deer and beef. I hadda friend shot a steer deer hunting when it stepped out of a pine thicket...well we ate it but he hadda pay for it...Biggest "deer" he ever shot...about a 1000 pounds. only the 2nd day of deer hunting for him. I made him stand still on a folding chair. He sounded like the Orange Blossum Special when he came walkin in the woods. I never for a second thought the neighbor farmer's steer would come through that pine thicket! Darn city boy thought he was getting attacked by Godzilla or something.

I have edit ...add He was a city boy a real one... from Boston. And I did help pay for the darn steer...but I got to eat it...Mr Brown's brown cow. And that cow's stomach was full of acorns

And sausage was cased in the intestines. Scrubbed the outside, turned them inside out and scrubbed the insides.

Stomach held the blood puddin'....

Old folks didn't waste anything....

Regarding intestines for sausage casings, I remember one of the local slaughterhouses blew them out with a steam hose. I don't eat sausage made with a gut casing.

As Mr. Creosote said: "I'll have the lot".

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Head cheese and Krakow sausage sandwiches. A Chicago staple. 👍

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SWCA #3356, SWHF#611

Deep fried rocky mountain oysters with a healthy dose of Tabasco...good eatin'.

Pretty well proven that many folks here will eat virtually anything if they eat fast food. RM oysters and other delicacies mentioned in these posts taste better and are probably better for you than fast food.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Head cheese was described by that weirdo the kids picked up in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Probably the grossest part of the movie.
My Grandpa Taylor used to let me watch him make his sandwiches for lunch at work. That’s when I learned about cow tongue. He would joke, “This is why cows can’t talk.”
This lunch meat sausage talk is why I only eat Hebrew National hotdogs.
One of my exes and I were at a bar and they had pickled lamb tongue in the six pack cooler and she asked for “whatever is in that jar.” She actually liked it. I’ve eaten quite a few Mezcal worms in my time but they are small and not moving and are pretty well pickled, as I’m sure I was.

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Waiting For The Sun.

I'll stick with fried livermush and grape jelly sandwiches.

This thread brought back memories. Bout only part of hog haven't had is chittlins and testicles. Saw here what Mama said bout hogs...only part we didn't use was 'the squeal'. She grew up in Depression years. Her conservative ways lasted a lifetime and carried over to me. Make with what's provided.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

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And so it goes...

There is a very small town named Tiro in Ohio near where I live...annually the town has the "Tiro Testicle Festival"...the advertisement for the festival states: "Come to our Tiro Testicle Festival you'll have a ball"...

I didn’t expect this thread. Just happened to be lunch yesterday…..a bit of mayo, spicy mustard, pickles and swiss. Delicious!

Sweet bread is another that isn't what it sound like.

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Common sense isn't so common.