Head Cheese

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...

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..
 
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...




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

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.
 
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.
 
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.

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Well...now that you mentioned testicles...

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.

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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"...
 
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I prefer blutwurst (blood sausage), made with mystery meat and pig's blood instead of gelatin.
I especially like the version with large junks of beef tongue.

blutwurst.jpg


41100-tongue-blutwurst-out-of-package-76-2958449.JPG
 

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