Been chatting back and forth with my older brother about Head Cheese. To be honest I haven't had any home made since my mother-in-law last made it. She's been gone almost 10 years now
Anyway talking with my brother about it. He said last time he had gotten any from a store just was right. So we decided it was time one or both of us tried making some. I had my wife dig in her mom's old recipes which she has to to see could we find her mom's recipe. The recipe was indeed in her mom's book. Note there said recipe came from my father in law mom. So that side of the family.
I did do a search in my family knowing my grandmother had made it. That search turned out finding nothing. My grandmother probably never had a written down anywhere just learned and knew how to make it.
Thing I recall as child my grandmother saying about head Cheese. It had everything in it but the pigs squeal. I have since learned different so know she was teasing this then 6-7 year old??

Now that I'm planning to make a batch of head cheese using my mother-in-law recipe.
I have of course googled head cheese recipes..
Doing that I find like every thing else dozens of various recipes.
Also that what my mother-in-law made was more simple more what's called souse.
I plan try do my batch in next week or so.
Got to be others here on T-Man with family recipes for souse or headcheese willing to share? Or compare?

Mac

Jerrys mom always made it. I helped her.

We cooked the tongues livers and hearts in one pan and let cool.

Then we boiled the hogs head..split in half in big pots for probably 6 hours. Then we'd let those cool of..

Usually overnight.

The next day wed grind the tongues. Livers and hearts with a meat grinder and remover all the meat from the head and run it through the grinder too.

We heated all that to boiling and added yellow cornmeal...just the straight corn meal..not corn.meql mix because it has self rising flour in it..however much it took to make a thick mixture..it thickens more as it cools
We added salt and rubbed sage to taste.. To me the more sage the better.

We put it into greased loaf pans and let it cool. Then sliced it and fried it. We froze the extra 'loaves" in recycled bread bags for later use.

Ive got some hogs heads and tongues and livers and hearts in. The freezer now getting ready to make some.

Is there a different name for that Like Scrapple Look up scrapple sounds just like it

sounds good cathryn. i like simple. do you put the brain in? do you just cut up all the cooked meat organs and skin up or run it all through a grinder?

Danny Cathryn's recipe is more like some of the others I read on net. Any head cheese that I have ever seen or had did not have the corn meal in it or organs.
The type I'm used to has vinegar in it and is held together in bone jell. It may have tongue in but there wasn't any brain or organ meat that I know of. My mother in-law actually made hers using pork hocks. It was always easier to just get them than actually getting a pigs head. I'm sure back in her younger days they used head.
The time I recall my grandmother making it. We had been to her sisters farm and came home with half a hog and the head. So I know she used the head meat can't say weather the brain was in it?
To many years ago.

Mac

We always took the brains, tongue, and jowels out and off the head and boiled it to remove the meat, the boiled hocks are used in place of store bought gelatin for a binder, if I was to make it and buying all the ingredients I’d use tongues, snouts, and hocks, probably have to buy some gelatin. We never really seasoned it much mainly some salt and pepper, I’ve had some that had cayenne in it and it was pretty good.

Try searching for "Souse" that is the vinegary version of head cheese.

Ours had the tounge , skin , snout ,ears , and pallet in it .no brains or jowl..the jowls were removed and the head split brains removed . Then each half was boiled with onions until it fell off the bone skim foam off early so it doesn't flavor the broth then cook broth until thick separate fat .remove skin and meat from bones then skim fat from broth .when I was young she used a hand crank grinder . In later years she used a blender to chop up the meat and skin broth mix . I don't remember spices except red and black pepper salt onions . She blended it to a mush then added a bunch of course diced sweet pickles to it .
Then she mixed it thoroughly and put it in greased loaf pans . It takes a lot of care in fat removal to not have greasy head cheese. This is one of my all time favorite dishes
I forgot to mention to peel the skin from the tounge and discard the skin . The skin from the tounge would make your head cheese gritty

never ever used cornmeal but always some of the skin which will thicken the head cheese kind of like proteins Jello. My uncle in Pa made a breakfast kind of meat with the cornmeal and left over pork and called it scrapple. One thing that makes head cheese good in my opinion is double garlic and black pepper.

My Mother’s family made Souse, Head Cheese, and Scrapple. I was raised on that soul food.
I never would eat tripe though. Yuck!

Now I eat the better cuts!

Pig brain when prepped & fried, reminds my tastebuds of seafood. I like seafood............. Tut

Define better .

One of my dad's favorites was brains and egg sandwiches. We ate a lot of brains when I was a kid and I hated them . Still don't like the starchy things

I have always just ate them scrambled with eggs off a plate stead of sandwichs.

Knew a guy in the 70's caught a lot of coyotes with rotted down beef brains. He would get a gob on a stick and lay it out in the sagebrush. Dont think he knew what snares were. He blind set gaps in the sage with longsprings on drags. Would catch coyotes as they circled the stink. Or walked into it. His theory was they would circle first.

You guys got me thinking I need to buy a hog fore it warms to much to let one cool over night.

We didn't and don't put the jowls in it because we did and I still do sugar cure them for bacon.

I've never eaten hog brains but I have eaten squirrel brains many times

Cured jowl is the best bacon

He liked them on toast

I had an uncle shot all his squirrels with a 410 or body shot with a 22. That way he had the brains to fry with scrabbled eggs. I've never tried brain my self and big I did. Would want one you folks that make them regular to fix them for me.

Mac

Quite a few people around here like to cook squirrel heads. Eat the cheek meat, tongue, brains and eyes. My ex mother in law would complain when I head shot them.

Grandma always fried them if they weren't shot up but nothing was said if they were . Heads were just another piece of squirrel on the table .never any leftovers