Headcheese 1

This little piggy went swimmin' in a brine.

One of the things I love best about charcuterie is its embracing of the stranger bits. In fact, charcuterie really requires it. The art of making sausages, terrines and pates, and other things from the "less desirable" cuts probably got into full swing when the peasantry, who worked the land, got what was left from a hog after the nobility, who owned it, got the prime cuts for roasting or grilling. Farmers were poor as a matter of course, which meant no scrap went uneaten. The ability to cook with such skill that lungs and spleens and tongues and snouts were enjoyable is a testament to the skill, resilience, and cunning of the working poor. What's more, that skill was so finely honed through the generations that the products they inspired are held in very high regard by many people whose financial means don't necessitate the consumption of odds and ends.

Like most chefs these days, I love varietal meats, or offal. They offer cooks the opportunity to explore bolder flavors and less familiar textures and many culinary techniques that  aren't widely used with other cuts. Headcheese is one such opportunity, though to speak true, the flavor and texture of headcheese is not always challenging. Really, it's a collection of lean and very flavorful meats bound by a flavorful gel that's created during its long, slow cooking. It tastes more "porky" than pretty much anything else you can make with the animal, is literally meltingly tender, and visually stunning.

Making headcheese is a labor of love, and for Brandon and me, a badge of honor. It's not always a hot seller, so opportunities to make it have been few and far between. Over the years we have made some very good ones, but we finally feel like we've gotten it down. It's a procedure that takes a couple of weeks and requires a lot of attention, fraught with potential pitfalls at every turn. Stay tuned over the course of the next two weeks to see the stages of its production.

Headcheese begins with the curing of a whole pig's head, this one, as you can see, in brine, with a ton of aromatics: onion, garlic, celery, bay leaf, clove, juniper, pepper, mace, just to name a few. An aggressive spice profile is typical in headcheese, usually incorporated at several different stages. We are a bit more reserved in that department. We think the great thing about this sausage is the full flavor of pork and wish to keep that in the forefront.

Thanks again to Nathan Creswick for the pig.