Head cheese

• 1. Introduction

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  In the stores of Alberta, Canada, the typical jellied meat on sale is labelled head cheese, whether or not any part of a head went into it. Head cheese contains no dairy at all. It is a cold meat terrine, normally made from the flesh of a calf's or pig's head and set in aspic. If a shop can drop the head and keep the name, the name must be doing some other work. Why would anyone call a jellied head a cheese? How do bone, skin and trimmings become a slice that holds its shape? And why do cooks on several continents each keep their own version of the dish?

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• 2. The Stock That Sets

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  The tongue is one of the few named parts that cooks often keep from the head. The brain, eyes and ears are not commonly used. Traditionally, the head was simmered without its organs, and the long cooking drew out a stock rich in natural gelatin. As the liquid cooled, it congealed around the meat and locked it into a single mass.

  Trimmings from more familiar pork and veal cuts often join the pot, and sometimes the feet and the heart. Some recipes add gelatin as a binder. More often the cook simply boils the liquid down until it will set. A Romanian cousin called piftie shows the logic clearly. It starts with pig's feet boiled into a soup, because feet hold more gelatin than any other part of the pig.

  Peasant kitchens have made meat jellies this way since the Middle Ages. Early brawns were heavy with spices and herbs. From the eighteenth century onward, cooks used a lighter hand. Today's version usually gets only sage, and perhaps a little lemon juice. Elsewhere in Europe, the seasoning tells a very different story.

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• 3. What's in a Name

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  In Limburg, in the Netherlands, the dish still goes by hoofdkaas and is eaten on bread or as a starter with the local sausage. A red, sweet kind and a grey, slightly sour kind are both sold. The word joins hoofd, meaning head, to kaas, meaning cheese. The cheese part describes the texture, not the ingredients. English copied the Dutch term word for word, which is why linguists call it a calque.

  Other English-speaking places chose differently. Scotland says potted heid, while England and Wales say brawn. In Yorkshire and Norfolk it is pork cheese. Irish brawn is made from pig's head and is regarded as a rare delicacy. Records show it in Ireland from at least the early nineteenth century.

  Brawn arrived from German and Old French and has carried many meanings, from roasted meat to particular dishes. At one point in English it meant the meat of the wild boar, then plentiful in Great Britain. Spain keeps that link alive with its name cabeza de jabalí, which means boar's head.

  The pickled kind, souse, is a corruption of the German word Sülze. Documents of the Counts of Katzenelnbogen wrote it as Sulcze in 1410 and again in 1430. French speakers say tête fromagée, which translates as cheesed head. Genoa calls its version testa in cassetta, meaning head in a box. Poland's salceson comes from the Italian salsiccione, and Cyprus's zalatina may come from the English word gelatin.

  In Germany, one name is reserved for the best version. Kaisersülze, or Emperor's Aspic, may contain only pure, top-quality meat with no fat or gristle.

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• 4. Pressed Under Weight

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  In Vojvodina, in northern Serbia, every village guards its own recipe for švargla. The basic version uses pig's tongue, heart, kidneys, skin and meat from the head, seasoned with paprika, salt, black pepper and garlic. The cook boils these, packs them into a pig's stomach, and boils the filled stomach a second time. Then it is pressed under weight and smoked for several days.

  Hungary's disznósajt follows a similar path. The chopped meat, flavoured with paprika and pieces of bacon, goes into a pig's stomach. The cook pricks it with needles and weights it down to squeeze out excess fat. Often it is smoked like a ham. Croatia's švargl is stuffed in the same way, and the source compares it to Scottish haggis.

  The Czech tlačenka is a richer cousin of huspenina, with more meat, chopped liver and offal. Slovakia and Slovenia share the name, and in both it means the pressed one. In Croatia, a strongly seasoned relative is called tlačenica.

  Poland's salceson is traditionally cased in either a pig's stomach or a cow's bladder. One variety uses beef tongue. The Brunswick variety uses liver and marjoram. The Italian variety is spiced with garlic, black pepper, fennel and cumin seeds. A black variety adds blood, semolina and bread crumbs, and can be seen as a form of kaszanka.

  In Bavaria, Presssack appears as a large sausage about 15 cm across, in deep red, pinkish and grey kinds. In Transylvania, the Romanian caş de cap de porc looks like a sausage about four inches wide, and it is close kin to the Hungarian disznófősajt.

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• 5. Occasions and Appetites

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  Sweden's julbord, the Christmas table, is where sylta takes its place. Popular kinds include kalvsylta, which is jellied veal, and pressylta, a pressed pork and veal brawn. Across Denmark, Norway and Sweden, it was once made from a pig's head. Now it usually comes from the forequarters or shanks of pork or veal, seasoned with allspice, bay leaves and thyme. It is served on rugbrød or lefse, with strong mustard and pickled beetroots.

  Estonia's sült is also a Christmas dish, though shops sell it all year. It carries far more aspic than meat, and a soft one will slump if left at room temperature. People pour diluted vinegar over it, or reach for horseradish or strong mustard. Latvia's galerts gets a splash of vinegar or a spoonful of horseradish too.

  In Russia, the version called kholodets is a popular food for festive occasions. Within the Jewish community, a beef or lamb version is also popular.

  Vietnamese families make giò thủ around Tết, the New Year celebration. They combine pork belly and pig's ears with garlic, scallions, wood ear mushrooms, fish sauce and cracked pepper. Cooks wrap it in banana leaves and compress it in a wooden mold, and the gelatin in the ears binds it together.

  Korea's pyeonyuk, made by pressing meat that usually comes from the pig's head, is eaten as anju, a food that goes with alcohol. It is usually served to funeral visitors.

  In Iran, the dish called kallepache is a breakfast. Special restaurants called kallepazi serve cooked sheep's head marinated in its own oil and cinnamon. Diners start eating it from about 5:00am.

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• 6. Sour and Spiced

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  Every Saturday morning in St. Vincent and Barbados, the Caribbean dish called souse is a familiar sight. Cooks take pig's feet, chicken feet or cow's tongue and cut the cooked meat into bite-sized pieces. They then soak it in a brine of water, lime juice, cucumbers, hot pepper and salt, with specially prepared seasonings. In Trinidad and Tobago, it is sold at most social gatherings, including parties, all-inclusive fetes and sporting competitions.

  Panama's version, called sous, belongs to the West Indian community on the Caribbean coast and is made the same way. In Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Dutch also say souse. They pickle pig's feet or tongue together with sausage.

  Farther south, the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama hog's head cheese is highly seasoned and served as a cold cut or appetizer. Vinegar gives it a sour edge. Cajun cooks often add green onions, and Louisiana French calls it fromage de cochon. In Mississippi and Alabama, the spicy form is called souse. Mexico's queso de puerco takes oregano, vinegar, garlic and black pepper.

  Vinegar and citrus appear all over Europe too. Greece's pichti usually includes vinegar. In Lazio and Umbria in central Italy, cooks add pieces of orange peel or serve the dish in a salad with oranges and black olives. In Campania, the head and foot are boiled whole, sliced, and served with lupini beans and fresh lemon. Luxembourg goes a different way, filling pastries with jelli made from aspic containing Riesling wine, most famously the Rieslingspaschtéit.

  Sicily's liatina shows how far the flavours can reach. It includes the head, feet, skin and ears, flavoured with bay leaf, pepper, vinegar and lemon.

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• 7. Carried Overseas and Remade

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  In South Africa, the Afrikaans word sult names a brawn that is often flavoured with curry. In Australia, brawn is also called Presswurst and is usually seen as old-fashioned. Large firms such as D'Orsogna, Don Smallgoods and KR Castlemaine still produce it.

  In South America, the dish is queso de cabeza in Chile and Colombia, and queso de chancho in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Costa Rica. Uruguay and Argentina call it queso de cerdo. Brazil's gaucho population eats queijo de porco, meaning pig cheese. In the German-colonized cities of Pomerode and Blumenau, cooks follow the German recipe and call it Sülze.

  In the Upper Midwest of the United States, two related products sit side by side. Head cheese and sulze are both made from pork snouts and tongues. Head cheese often uses larger chunks of smoked meat. Sulze uses unsmoked, chopped meat, with added vinegar and pickles.

  Canada shows the widest range. Newfoundland brawn is typically made from wild game such as moose and caribou. Quebec sells tête fromagée in grocery stores and butcher shops beside cretons and terrines. Some Ontario grocery stores, notably in the German heartland of Waterloo Region, stock commercial pork versions in the deli section. In Prince Edward Island, the dish was common before 1970, often called potted head or potted meat, and now feels old-fashioned.

  In New Brunswick, the name has drifted furthest. There, a spread similar to cretons, made from pork head and Boston butt with onion, salt and summer savory, is often called head cheese.

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