ick

Kinda weird. Even weirder, I actually know people who eat some of those things, including the bizarre breakfast combo. Several of the recipes on that site are in cookbooks I own. I don't think biscuits with chocolate gravy is gross, I love just about anything with chocolate! But I have never tried the recipes I have for headcheese or scrapple, although I'm pretty sure none of my scrapple recipes use a whole hogs head, yuck.

I have never made head cheese, but had some once at a friend's house that was divine. She scorned the rubber and eraser cold cut head cheese from the grocery store and bought hers from some old guy in the ghetto of Richmond (CA) who made it the way her grandma had. Gosh, it was good, but I've never had it since.

Some of the things sound just fine (I'm not squeamish) but I gotta wonder about the several recipes using dry roasted bugs of one sort or another...I mean, where do they get them...does Planters have a sideline I don't know about?

I had my first beetle croutons about a 100 miles south of Mexico City in 1984. We had a private tour guide who took us to wonderful off the tourist path private homes for many meals. I'm a squeamish eater & crunching down those beetles so as not to insult my host/hostess was difficult. My then 10-year old son keep giving me sideways glances to make sure I hadn't keeled over! When I returned to CO I tried recreating many of the wonderful meals we were served but never attempted to roast the crickets/beetles...just didn't have the stomach for it. It never occured to me to look for Planters already roasted bugs! lol

My father was German-Russian & grew up eating heat cheese as a delicacy. Mom wouldn't make it for him. But, whenever we returned to Dad's home in Portland, Oregon...Grandma would make head cheese for Dad. I tried it once/twice & decided Mom had the right idea!

/tricia

Nothing weird about head cheese... It's pork, beef, veal, salt and pepper... You boil it all until the meat falls off the bones, drain the liquid, remove the fat and greese then put the pieces of meat in the juice and refrigerate until jelled... Slice it and eat as is or put a little distilled vinegar over it... Mighty good eating and a great way to use cheap cuts of meat...

Rita

I've tried the head cheese and it was like congealed fat. Not for me!

I've tasted chocolate gravy once and it just tastes like chocolate pudding. I don't want it on my biscuits thank you.

I love really salty pork brains. I want mine plain with no eggs please.

I'll leave the remainder of the items on that website for someone else to try.

Beverly

I redeemed myself over on the conversations side for this iffy thread!

Yuck! We were watching something on I think National Geographic last night called Taboo that addressed people eating all sorts of "taboo" foods. Very fascinating!

Headcheese. My MIL makes hers (I don't know how, but it sure doesn't look like my mom's headcheese!) and it's like brown jello! YUK!!! I think she makes hers with pig's feet. I think she cooked the feet and shredded the meat and then added gelating to the broth. NOTHING like my mom's recipe!

My mom makes hers with a pig's head. I have the recipe if anyone is interested. My mom wasn't one to eat it unless she made it herself or knew how the other person make it. It's a lot of work, but worth it! According to her... I don't eat the stuff! My mom's headcheese is more like a pate. You can add the tongue too! hahaha

Can't bring myself to open the link, just reading the posts here is enough for me. Yes, Barnmom, you have redeemed yourself on Conversations!

I've had "scrambled brains", my X wife did it to me, LOL!

I have to get off this thread before I hurl all over my laptop. Vique.
John 3:16

Headcheese is a more rural version of a galantine, a dish that was not only common to your grandparents, but considered a delicacy as well. A well-made stock, gelled with gelatine, is a high-protein foodstuff that like old-fashioned bread made from freshly ground wheat, was a valued addition to the daily diet.

In these days of plastic-wrapped chickens and vacuum-packed meat, we've forgotten that to earlier generations, food was an expensive and venerated commodity. One did not waste a single scrap of meat, bone or fat; being thrifty could literally mean the difference between life and death for your family.

I don't care for headcheese, but my mother loved it, and often made her own. There was no comparison between her homemade headcheese and the rubbery stuff sold in the grocery stores. But then, many people have never had real old-fashioned sauerkraut, either. I suffer with the store-bought stuff because it's incredibly difficult to find the real thing these days. I can find homemade kim chi easier, in fact!

Styles in food change over the years. Americans nowadays have never gone hungry for days and weeks on end. Let the electrical grid collapse, and we would find ourselves eating things that formerly we would have turned our collective noses up at.

bump

My grandmother used to make chocolate gravy and homemade biscuits.Everyone in the family loved it except me.I do not like chocolate but I love the homemade biscuits.

She passed away last thursday and she is very much missed.

vintagegardener, so sorry to hear about your grandmother.

Vintagegardener, I too am sorry you've lost your grandmother. All of mine are passed away. My two great grandmothers on my dad's side outlived their children.

Last time I was at the deli counter, a lady ordered some head cheese...Gag..the clerk said that they actually sell alot to clientelle of that "era". LOL The lady appeared to be well into her 70's.

Vintagegardener, I want to add my condolences on the loss of your grandmother. In spite of the "cultural differences" that go with age, people of that generation have much knowledge and many abilities that, unfortunately, are sometimes lost along with them.

I did have chocolate gravy once, when I visited my cousin's stepmother and her family in southern Tennessee. LIke you, I didn't care for the chocolate, but loved the biscuits, I liked mine with butter and jam or honey.

As for headcheese, my grandparents made it. I wouldn't eat it, preferring to go hungry, which I did. So, I have the knowledge, the ability, even the ingredients. It's a piece of knowledge that I doubt I'll pass to my grandchildren, somehow.

Annie

The butcher stalls in our farmers' markets carry all types of piggy parts and preparations, including head cheese, souse, and tripe. The week before I took the first photo, Alton Brown did a show about brain sandwiches and they were almost sold out (far left).

In this pic, the head cheese is behind the souse toward the left. Liver pudding and scrapple in the middle and both sliced and pickled jellied tripe on the right.

The only thing shown above that I eat is the pig stomach stuffed with sausage, potatoes and onions. A local Lions' Club recently had a benefit hog maw (pig stomach) dinner with 400+ attendees.