Meats and Small Game: The Foxfire Americana Library - Foxfire Students (2011)

RECIPES FOR HOG

THE HEAD

SOUSE—(Also called “souse meaty,” “headcheese” “pressed hog’s head,” etc.) Prepare the raw hog’s head as follows:

Trim, scrape, or singe off any hairs or bristles that are left.

If you intend to use the ears, brains, snout, tongue, or jowls for any purpose other than souse, remove them and set aside to soak. Otherwise, leave them on the head to be ground up. Note that the ears are gristly, and when ground up in the souse, they leave white flukes of gristle in the meat. This is not harmful, but some find it unattractive.

Cut out the eyes.

The bulk of the head is now halved or quartered with an axe, or left whole (depending on the size of your pot), and while still fresh, is put in a pot of fresh water, usually to soak overnight. This soaking removes the remaining blood from the meat.

We have found only a few people who cook the head whole. One reason is that leaving it whole makes it harder to soak the blood out. Bill Lamb gave a different reason, saying, “Henry’d killed a hog, and when he come in from work, they had it sittin’ there cooked. Hadn’t even cut th’ ears out, th’ eyes’r nothin’. Just cooked th’ whole head like it was. Had it sittin’ in a dish. That’uz th’ first thing he seed was that hog lookin’ at him when he come in t’dinner, an’ he just turned and went back an’ never eat a bite.”

After soaking, rinse the head until the rinse water runs clear. Then put it in a pot of clean, salty water and cook it slowly until it is good and tender, and the meat begins to fall off the bones. Then remove all meat from the bones and run through a food chopper.

Seasoning depends on your own taste. Some use, per head, one tablespoon of sage, a half teaspoon ground red pepper, and salt and black pepper to taste. Others use one onion, one pod of strong red pepper chopped fine, and one teaspoon of salt. Beulah Perry uses a little red and black pepper, an onion, a little corn meal, and sage and garlic to taste. Evie Carpenter adds a little vinegar, along with sage, black pepper and onion.

The meat and seasoning are now thoroughly mixed, and then put into capped jars, a mold, or a plate (covered with a clean white cloth). Then, if it is not to be eaten immediately, it is put into the smokehouse where the winter weather will keep it fresh. It can either be eaten cold, or reheated, depending on your preference.

Another method—Proceed as before through the seasoning step. Then put the mixture in a skillet and place on the back of the wood stove until the grease is runny. Remove from the fire, put a plate on top of the meat, and apply pressure to make the grease run out. Repeat until all the grease is out and poured off. Remove the plate, put the meat on a clean plate, and keep in a cold place. Slice as needed.

SCRAPPLE—As told by Mrs. Mann Norton, “Take th’ head, an’ take th’ eyeballs out, an’ th’ ears, an’ cut down in there. Then y’got all th’ hairs off of it. Y’put it in a big pot an’ cooked it til th’ meat just turned loose of th’ main big bone.

“Y’lifted them bones out, an’ laid your meat over in there an’ felt of it with your hands t’see if they wadn’t no bones in it. Then y’strain yer liquid through a strainer so th’ little bones’d come out. Put’cher liquid back in a pot, and put that mashed meat back in that liquid. Put’cher sage an’ pepper in there. Then y’stir it ’til it got t’boilin’. Then y’stick plain corn meal in there til it’s just plumb thick. Then y’pour it up in a mold, an’ cut it off’n fry it, an’ brown it. Tastes just like fish.”

Mann Norton added, “Just hold your tongue so y’didn’t swaller it when y’went t’eatin’!”

HOG’S HEAD STEW—This recipe comes from the Joanne Carver family. Every harvesttime they plunge into a cooking-canning spree that goes for days and leaves them more than ready for the winter. The measurements given below yielded sixty-three quarts last time around. If you can’t handle quite that much, cut proportionally, subtracting or adding other ingredients according to preference.

1½ hog’s heads

2 shoulders or hams of venison

4 chickens

1 peck onions

1 gallon Irish potatoes

5 half gallons each of tomatoes, corn, peas, carrots

6 large cans tomato juice to thin

1 package poultry seasoning

bay leaves to taste

5 pounds salt (or to taste)

Worcestershire Sauce to taste

pepper to taste

broth may be substituted for, or added to the tomato juice

Cook the meat until it comes easily off the bones. Cool, remove the meat from the bones, and grind it up (or run through a food chopper) together with the other ingredients. Place the mixture in quart jars, seal, and cook in a pressure cooker for sixty minutes at ten pounds pressure. Then store away for the lean months.

Her mother’s recipe for the same stew, provided us by Brenda Carver, varies somewhat: 1 hog’s head, 2 chickens, 4 pounds ground beef, 1 gallon potatoes, 1 gallon tomatoes, 4 number two cans each of peas, corn, and carrots. Chop and blend ingredients, can, cook in pressure cooker for thirty minutes.

JOWLS—The jowls are fatty, so they are often removed rather than being combined with the souse meat. Some salt them down and cure them just like hams or middlin’ meat, and save them until warm weather to be boiled with vegetables. Others grind them up with the sausage meat.

Some also fry them. As Bill Lamb said, “Now you talkin’ about part of a hog that I love is th’ jowls. They ain’t a better tastin’ bite’a meat in a hog than th’ jowl is. You fry it.”

TONGUE—Clean by pouring boiling water over it and scraping it. Then boil until tender in a little salt water with pepper added if you wish. Slice and serve.

BRAIN—Most of our contacts put the brains in hot water to loosen the veil of skin covering them. Then they boil them in one cup of water, adding salt and pepper to taste while stirring. When cooked, they mash them with a potato masher, put them in a pan, and scramble them with eggs.

Others let them stand in cold water for one to two hours. Then they drain them and remove any unwanted fibers. Then cook as above for twenty minutes in salted water and proceed as above, using eggs, etc.

SNOUT (also called the “rooter”)—the snout is often cleaned and roasted. Mann Norton claims, “Lot’a people throwed away that they called th’ rooter. Oh I forbid that. I’d rather have that as any part a’-th’ hog. Oh that’s good eatin’.”

EARS—If the ears were not used in souse, they could also be boiled in salt water until tender, and eaten. Very few of our contacts used them alone, however, due to the amount of gristle they contain, especially at the tips.

INTERNAL ORGANS

LIVER—Most of our contacts used the liver for “liver pudding,” or “liver mush.” They made it as follows—Cut up the liver, wash it well, and remove skin. Boil until tender in salted water. Then remove and run through a colander until fine, or mash well. Mix the meat with one cup of the broth it was cooked in. Bring to a boil slowly, stirring in sifted corn meal until thick. Also stir in salt (to taste), a half teaspoon black pepper, two tablespoons sage, and a little red pepper if desired.

Pour into a mold and let sit until cold. Slice and eat. Some eat it as a sandwich, or warm the slices in bacon fat or grease before eating.

HEART—None of our contacts used the heart by itself, but none of them threw it away, either. Some canned it after cleaning, with backbones and ribs for use later in stews. Others boiled the heart, backbone, and lights (lungs) together for stew. Still another boiled kidneys, heart, tail, and tongue together for stew.

LIGHTS (more commonly known as lungs)—Nowhere did we run into as much difference of opinion as with this item. One said, “It’s very good—very good.” Another said, “Lots’a folks like th’ lights, but I never did.” Another comment was simply, “Feed’em to th’ dogs!” Those recipes we did get—

Boil them in just enough salted water to cover them after cleaning them well. Don’t use too much water or it will steal some of their flavor. If there isn’t any water left when they’re done, it’s better.

Cook them down to the consistency of a gravy, mash, and serve. They cannot be kept.

Another chopped up the lights with the liver and tongue, added a chopped onion, red pepper, salt, and cooked until tender.

STOMACH (also called the “paunch” or “punch”)—Cut the stomach free of intestines, split, and wash out well. Scrape it down and soak in salt water for three days. Then rinse, cut up, and cook like chitlins. (Most of our contacts also removed the inside layer when cutting it up prior to frying.)

INTESTINES (called “chitterlings” or, more commonly, “chitlins.”)—Sections of the intestine are put in a jar of salt water and allowed to sit for three or four days. Then they are taken out, rinsed, washed, and rinsed again. In winter, they can be lightly salted, put up in jars, and kept for a few days before cooking.

When cooking, cut up in small pieces and remove any unwanted layers of lining. Then boil in salt water with a half pod of pepper until tender. Dip into a batter made of flour, water, and baking powder (with an egg if desired) and fry; or roll in corn meal and fry in grease.

THE REMAINDER

FEET—Rake hot coals out on the fireplace hearth. Put the feet on the hearth with the hooves against the coals. When very hot, the hooves can be sliced out of the meat easily, and the remainder of the hair scraped or singed off, and the meat scraped clean. Then put in a pot of salt water and cook, or roast.

The feet can also be boiled in salty water until the meat slips off the hooves. They can be pickled too.

Mann Norton said, “Doc Neville, now he always wanted th’ feet. I’d pack’em in a shoe box just as full as I could get it and mail ’em to him.”

BACKBONE/RIBS—These can either be put together and stewed like chicken parts, barbecued, or canned with a teaspoon of salt per quart can. Water is not necessary when heating as they make their own gravy.

TAIL—Often the tail was saved for use in stews. One contact made a stew of feet, ears, tail, salt, and red pepper, boiled until tender.

SKIN—The mother of one of our contacts used to save pieces of skin, put them in a pan, and roast them. Then the children could “eat it all along.”

SAUSAGE—Use any combination of lean meat not used otherwise. This includes trimmings of lean meat from hams, shoulders, middlin’ meat, etc. It can also include the tenderloin, meat from the head, and, if you wish, the jowls.

Take ten pounds of lean pork, a quarter cup salt, a half cup brown sugar, two tablespoons sage, two teaspoons black pepper, and two teaspoons red pepper. Many parch their own red pepper in front of the fireplace, crush it, and then add it to the sausage.

Run the mixture through a sausage grinder, fry it good and brown (but not completely cooked since it has to be reheated when served), pack into jars (half to three-quarters full) while still very hot, pour hot grease over the top, close the jars, and turn them upside down to cool. When the grease cools, it seals the lids shut, and the sausage will keep until you are ready to use it. It is usually stored with the jars remaining upside down.

Other ways to store it:

Roll the sausage into balls, pack them in a churn jar, pour hot grease over the top, tie a cloth over the lid, and set in the water trough of your spring house.

Pack the sausage in sections of cleaned, small intestine, tie the intestine off at both ends, and hang from the joists of the smokehouse for curing.

Remove the ear from a corn shuck, pack the sausage inside after washing the shuck thoroughly, tie the end of the shuck closed with string or wire, and hang in the smokehouse.

Pack in small, clean, white cloth sacks and hang in smokehouse.

FAT—The fat is trimmed from entrails, hams, shoulders, middlin’, etc. It is left out all night in the lard pot so that the cold weather can solidify it and make it easier to cut up.

In the morning, the fat is cut up into pieces about the size of hens’ eggs and put in a pot containing just enough water to keep it from sticking to the sides when cooked. The pot is then placed over a fire, and the fat is allowed to cook slowly. It is stirred often. By evening, the grease will have boiled out, the water evaporated, and the hard residue called “cracklin’s” will have fallen to the bottom.

The grease (lard) is poured into containers, allowed to harden, and is used all winter for cooking. The cracklin’s are saved for bread.

Add soda if you don’t want many cracklin’s. The soda also keeps it from smelling while cooking and from tasting strong.