Headcheese--Who likes it?

My Family have been meat cutters going back at least to the 1800s in Odessa. My Dad taught me when I was around 13 and when he had a heart attack and could not lift the beef quarters I took over. Luckily I was a pretty strong kid and could lift and carry the quarters. I really liked the work except for slicing head cheese and livers. I did it but the smell always got to me.
 
When we killed a hog we used everything except the squeal. I
like head cheese ( but hold the onion) Another thing that is hard
to come by these days is real Mince Meat Pie. The store bought
stuff contains no meat only fruit rinds and raisins. A lot of young
and pilgrims not from this area never herd of it. When you tell
them what's it made off they freak out. Just to add to that I tell
them me and brother use to fight over the slice with the eye balls
in it. There is nothing like pie crust made with lard. These days
most pie crust comes from the store. My only short coming in
this department is that I don't feel like eating some fresh fried
up pork while elbow deep in hog butchering.
 
I've never tried head cheese but my parents were both French. So my dad used to have Creton a French Canadian spiced pork spread. He normally would spread it on toast for breakfast.

I was talking to my 86 year old Aunt and Godmother a few weeks ago and she was calling it head cheese but I knew it was Creton she was talking about.
I did a search and found a recipe on line and made a 2 lb. batch . It came out very good but for my taste I only like it once in a blue moon.

The recipe was easy just 1 lb.ground pork,1 cup milk, dice a small onion, 1 tsp. diced and crushed garlic, 1 pinch allspice,1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. pepper ,1 pinch clove and 1/2 cup of bread crumbs. Cook for 1 hr. stirring often after 1 hr. add the bread crumbs and cook 10 min. more let cool and refridgerate and spread on toast.
 
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Never tried head cheese, but do like tripe.

When I first moved to PA, one of the guys brought in a slab of "Soupie". The room cleared pretty quickly. Smelled like really bad old socks. He wouldn't tell me what it was, exactly, (old coal country family recipe) but it wasn't that bad. Ended up liking it, even after I found out it was pressed meat, hung in the attic for about 6 months, to cure.

Larry
 
I worked in a deli about 100 years ago lol. We sliced headcheeses and something else I can't remember?
 
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I boil tripe till tender. Slice it in cubes, add tomato sauce and simmer. Season with basil, oregano, garlic salt. Add fresh buttered italian bread and enjoy.

Hungarian Hurka it's a rice and blood ring sausage. Awesome.
 
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For those of you that have heard the term before, but that is it, (I can't be the only one), Nope! Ain't gonna try it! :eek:



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Drm50 said:
Cheek meat can't be beat, of hogs or walleyes. Some of the store
bought stuff isn't much different than spam. One of my favorite
breakfast meats is Pea Meal Bacon, popular in Canada. It's a
cured boneless loin. It's habit forming.
Click to expand...

Thank you for explaining what pea meal bacon is. When we made our extended family fishing trips into Canada, I used to get the pea meal bacon at a restaurant in the mall in North Bay, Ontario. Unfortunately after several years we found the restaurant was out of business.
 
In my pre-LEO days I worked security in a packing plant. In addition to all the stuff that gets made from beef (all that they killed) they bought boxed pork trim and carcasses and made a lot of specialty cold cuts and sausages. Good stuff! At Christmas time they made head cheese and blood pudding. (not my cup o tea!) But where I was raised almost every small town had a butcher shop and a creamery that made cheese and sometimes ice cream. In those small shops you could get brains and kidney and tripe of all kinds. Most of the butchers were of German or Eastern European ancestry and all had their own special way of making things. I will eat heart, liver, tongue and testicles (although they bring an aching to my groin) but I don't do kidneys and some of the other internal stuff others relish.

By the way, Drm50 is right, that little nugget of meat from the walleye head (cheek meat, cutlet, whatever) is a little chunk of Heaven!
 
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I miss the old days when the maw & pa resturaunts lined main highways
up through Ontario & Quebec. I ate Pea meal Bacon from Ft.Erie to Timmins. I had a buddy who was also hooked on it. We use to drive straight through when we were in our 20s & 30s, 21hrs. every 4 hrs or
so we would stop for a coffee and a bacon sandwich. Couldn't do that
now, the driving I mean. Could still handle the bacon.
 
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