Head cheese

[Walt Bulander]

Foxfire

I had seen the play, but my wife said it was at our local high school. Hmm.

I then googled Jessica Tandy and foxfire. It was a movie directed by her husband Hume Cronyn and the country singer was her son (played by John Denver)

Constance,

Have you gathered any information about life in the winter? I'm thinking of the Armistice Day blizzard in 1940. It killed a lot of people and livestock. I personally remember one in January 1975. 50-60mph winds and 20 below zero for 3 days! I went out to check the dogs in the barn, and missed the house on the way back. If I hadn't walked right into a tree, I might not be here.

 

[Constance]

I'm finished with the head cheese. Thanks for all your help! I have the blood sausage to do tomorrow, but I believe I have that under control.
I'll be writing next about making liver sausage (they've slaughtered 4 hogs for two families), and then we'll make other sausages.
I know enough about liver sausage to know that I like it. We can still get it from a German butcher up the road. But I have no idea what he puts in it. I'll do more research, but if any of you have thoughts on homemade sausages in general, especially liver sausage, I would love to hear them.

I found out, in my research, that they cooked the blood sausage by boiling it, then laid the whole length of it out on a board in the sun to dry. Remember, it was cold when they did this. After it dried, they hung it in the cave/cellar.

The Firefox book is great. I had a lot of technical info on hog butchering, but the article they had about it put me right there. There are a lot of good article in the four books my husband has. Thanks for the suggestion, T-roy!

 

[T-roy]

My pleasure, now that I've dug up the book I'll enjoy re-reading it.
I just found this thread http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f32/using-melon-baller-40407.html
It might be funny to post the hog eyeball removal idea over there.

 

[Constance]

Constance,

Have you gathered any information about life in the winter? I'm thinking of the Armistice Day blizzard in 1940. It killed a lot of people and livestock. I personally remember one in January 1975. 50-60mph winds and 20 below zero for 3 days! I went out to check the dogs in the barn, and missed the house on the way back. If I hadn't walked right into a tree, I might not be here.

Walt, I haven't heard about that one, but I sure heard a lot of winter stories from my dad. The only heat they had in that drafty old farmhouse was big potbelly stove in the kitchen. There was a hole cut in the floor where the stove-pipe went up to the roof, and it got so cold upstairs that they could hang meat in the spare bedroom. The cook-stove had a what was called a water well to one side of the firebox, but when they banked the fire (in the cook stove) at night, even that would freeze up.

The kids were picked up for school in a farm wagon until the snow got too deep, and then they went in a horse drawn sleigh. A blizzard caught them on the way home one afternoon, and the horses got all lathered up trying to get the sleigh through the wind and deepening snow. The kids ended up staying at the closest farmhouse.
The family got the kids fed, into dry clothes and bedded down for the night, but my dad ended up with a girl's nightgown, and said although he cried and cried, his big sister still made him wear it.

 

[Walt Bulander]

I know lots of more recent, but similar, stories. I have a friend who used to be a teacher that was chaperone to a bus full of high school girls returning from a basketball game, who got stuck in a blizzard only a few miles from town, and spent the night with the proverbial norwegian batchelor farmer. 20+ girls and only an outhouse. Hilariious.

 

[Constance]

Ya know, Walt, I wish every teenager had to read this book. They have no idea what a struggle it was just to stay alive back then.
Unfortunately, I don't think they will relate.

 

[Katie H]

Ya know, Walt, I wish every teenager had to read this book. They have no idea what a struggle it was just to stay alive back then.
Unfortunately, I don't think they will relate.

Nope...not unless it can somehow be put on YouTube!

 

[T-roy]

When I was a teenager I didn't like most of the books I 'had to read'. When given a choice I found plenty of good books I could relate to.
I wonder what kind of teenager Julia was?
"As a girl I had zero interest in the stove." - Julia Child
This is real inspiration. Look what Julia became!

 

[Rom]

i was just really really wondering what in the world head cheese was...thank goodness for wiki LOL i guess i was more familiar with the "brawn" term for it...u can't imagine what i was thinking when the words, head, cheese, pig head were mentioned LOL