A pig’s head can by baked, roasted, boiled, and stewed. It can be served whole or halved, or made into head cheese, souse, or other recipes.

INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS

BAKED PIG’S HEAD
Split the pig’s head into halves and sprinkle them with pepper and salt. Lay them with the rind part uppermost upon a bed of sliced onions in a baking dish. Next, bruise eight ounces of stale bread crumb and mix it with four ounces of chopped suet, twelve sage leaves chopped fine, and pepper and salt to season.

Sprinkle this seasoning all over the surface of the pig’s head. Add one ounce of butter and a gill of vinegar to the onions, and bake the whole for about an hour and a half, basting the head occasionally with the liquor.

COLLARED PORK HEAD
Clean the head well, take out the brains, rub it with a handful of salt and two ounces of saltpeter. Let it lie a fortnight* in brine, then wash it and boil it till the bones will easily come out.

Lay it in a dish, take off the skin carefully, take out the bones, and peel the tongue. Chop the meat into pieces about an inch square. Mix a handful of sage, a little thyme, and four shallots chopped fine. Add to the meat and mix thoroughly.

Put a thin cloth into an earthen pot, lay in the meat, cover the cloth over, and press it down. Set the pot in the liquor again, boil it nearly an hour longer, then take it out. Place a weight on the cover and let it remain all night. Take it out, strip off the cloth, and eat the collar with mustard and vinegar.

*fortnight – a period of two weeks.

PRESSED HEAD
Boil ears, forehead, and rind, (the cheek is good but is better corned and smoked). Boil them till the meat will almost drop from the bones. Take them up when cold, cut the meat in strips about an inch long and half an inch broad. Warm it in a little of the liquor in which the meat was boiled, and season it with pepper, salt, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon. When hot, take it up and put it in a strong bag. Put a heavy weight upon it and let it remain till perfectly cold.

PIG’S HEAD ROASTED
Take the head of a half-grown pig, clean and split it, taking out the brains and setting these aside in a cool place. Parboil the head in salted water, drain off this, wipe the head dry, and wash all over with beaten egg. Dredge thickly with bread-crumbs, seasoned with pepper, sage, and onion.

Roast, basting twice with butter and water, and then with the liquor in which the head was boiled. Lastly, baste with the gravy that runs from the meat. Wash the brains in several waters until they are white. Beat to a smooth paste, then add one-fourth part fine bread-crumbs, pepper, and salt. Make into balls, binding with a beaten egg. Roll in flour and fry in hot fat to a light brown. Arrange them about the head when it is dished. Skim the gravy left in the dripping-pan, thicken with brown flour, add the juice of a lemon, and boil up once. Pour it over the head and serve.

TO HASH PIG’S HEAD
 Take the head, feet, and harslet* of pig. Boil them until done, then cut them up fine, taking out the bones.Add black pepper, salt, a little sage. two onions chopped fine, a little red pepper, one teaspoon mace, and one teaspoon cloves. Put the meat back in the same vessel with the liquor and cook till done, then thicken with a little flour.

*haslet / harslet – pork offal (heart, lungs, liver, stomach, and other edible viscera). Also, a cold meat dish of minced pork offal compressed into a loaf before being cooked.

HEAD CHEESE
Head cheese or brawn is a cold cut that originated in Europe. It is not a dairy cheese, but a terrine or meat jelly made with flesh from the head of a calf or pig, or less commonly a sheep or cow. Often set in aspic, it may be eaten cold with vinegar or fried as sausage.

PORK HEAD CHEESE
Take the head, tongue, and feet of young fresh pork, or any other pieces that are convenient. Having removed the skin, boil till all the meat is quite tender and can be easily stripped from the bones. Then chop it small and season it with salt and black pepper to your taste, and if you choose, some beaten cloves. Then add sage-leaves and sweet marjoram, minced fine, or rubbed to powder.

Mix the whole very well together with your hands. Put it into deep pans with straight sides, (the shape of a cheese). Press it down hard and closely with a plate that will fit the pan, putting the under side of the plate next to the meat, and placing a heavy weight on it.

In two or three days it will be fit for use, and you may turn it out of the pan. Send it to the table cut in slices and use mustard and vinegar with it. It is generally eaten at supper or breakfast.

SOUSE ~ A version of head cheese pickled with vinegar is known as souse.
This is made of the head, ears, and tongue. Boil them in salted water until very tender. Strip the meat from the bones and chop fine. Season with salt, pepper, sage, sweet marjoram, a little powdered cloves, and half a cup of strong vinegar.

Mix all together thoroughly, taste to see that it is flavored sufficiently, remembering that the spice tends to keep it. Pack hard in molds or bowls, interspersing the layers with bits of the tongue cut in oblongs, squares and triangles not less than an inch in length.

Press down and keep the meat in shape by putting a plate on the top of each mold (first wetting the plate) and a weight upon this. In two days the cheese will be ready for use.

Turn out from the molds as you wish to use it. Should you desire to keep it several weeks, take the cheese from the molds and immerse in cold vinegar in stone jars. This will preserve it admirably and you have only to pare away the outside should it be too acid for your taste.

Souse is generally eaten cold for tea with vinegar and mustard. But it is very nice cut in slices, seasoned slightly with mustard, and warmed in a frying-pan with enough butter to prevent burning. Or, you may dip in beaten egg, then cracker-crumbs, and fry for breakfast.

TO STEW PIG’S HEAD AND JOWL
Clean the head and feet. Take out the bone above the nose, cut off the ears and clean them nicely. Separate the jowl* from the head and take care of the brains to add to the stew.

Put the head, jowl, feet and part of the liver in water sufficient to keep well covered, then boil until quite done. Split the feet to put on the dish. Hash the head and liver, but do not spoil the jowl, which must be put in the middle of the dish and surrounded with the feet and hash.

Put all of the hash, jowl and feet in the pot and season with a cup of cream, a lump of butter, pepper and salt, a tablespoon of walnut catsup, an onion chopped fine, and a stalk of celery. A teaspoon of mustard improves it.

Stew half an hour and thicken the gravy with grated bread.

*jowl –  a cut of pork from a pig’s cheek.

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Have You Ever Eaten Meat from a Pig’s Head? Please Leave a Comment Below.

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Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal

Odd Bits features over 100 recipes devoted to the “rest of the animal,” those under-appreciated but incredibly flavorful and versatile alternative cuts of meat.

This book will remove the mystery of cooking with offal, so food lovers can approach them as confidently as they would a steak. From the familiar (pork belly), to the novel (cockscomb), to the downright challenging (lamb testicles), Jennifer McLagan provides expert advice and delicious recipes to make these odd bits part of every enthusiastic cook’s repertoire.

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VINTAGE COOKING from the 1800s ~ PORK
by Angela A Johnson

Journey back into the 1800s and discover how people prepared, cooked, and preserved pork, making use of the whole animal. With no electrical refrigeration or modern conveniences, it was a time of thriftiness, resourcefulness, and “making do.”

Recipes Include Pig Feet Relish, German Roast Pork, Boiled Bacon and Cabbages, Bologna Sausage, Pork Apple Pot-Pie, Pork and Peas Pudding, Pork Stew, Baked Pork and Beans, Italian Pork and more.

Available from these online Retailers:

Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Barnes&Noble, Scribd, 24 Symbols,  Playster, Angues & Robertson, Mondadori Store, and more.

Also available as  Regular Print and Large Print on Amazon.

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