My butcher has started to sell these for £3 each.
I don't think I could cope with them personally with the tongue hanging out and the eye balls still in but I have seen other customers buy them.
Sadly, these customers don't seem to speak English as their first language. I asked one Thai looking lady (she may have been from Burma, Cambodia or anywhere in the area since I find it hard to spot the difference from appearance) how to cook them, her friendly reply was, 'Yes cook very good many dishes'.
I watched the butcher chop the head for her and it looked full of meat, so I do reckon that for £3 these heads must be a bargain.
Since then, on my rounds, I have noticed pig's tongues for sale for £1.40 each and ears for 60p. Pigs head brawn I have heard about of course.
Then low and behold, some cheffy programme on TV which I turned on half way through (typical) was just finishing off a pig's head tureen to sell at a ridiculous price per person to foodies who are always on the look out for some thing different. (Could be the new 'in thing' for dinner parties)
So I wondered if any of our skilled chefs here had bought and used them.
I can sort of remember my mother buying thes when I was a child - the cheek was cut off & used as a roast, I believe it was called a bath chap. The tongue she boiled & pressed. The rest of it was boiled(?) & turned into brawn.
It is said that the only part of a pig that you can't eat is it's squeak!
I too have fond memories of my old dear buying pigs heads and roasting or boiling them for hours to make brawn. Sadly however that particular knowledge has not been passed down through the generations but I would love to learn more myself if anyone has any direct experience..
http://www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/miscellaneous/fetch-recipe2.php?rid=misc-brawn
Here is a recipe
My mother used to make this many years ago, it was not the best thing I have ever tasted but saying that my mother is not the best cook either.
We used to buy half a pig for the freezer, so always had half a head as well. The tongue is good, so is the chap, and it makes lovely brawn. And masses of stock.
The definitive book is Jane Grigson's "Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery" - her very first book. Mine is the 1970 Penguin paperback (cost - 40p or 8 shillings!). It may still be in print - her Vegetable & Fruit books are, as well as English Food - but I bet you can find one second-hand, or in a library.
It also contains masses of stuff on making pates, pies & sausages, as well as salting & brining.
I reckon I've had my 40p's worth over the last 40 years!!
We used to rear 2 piglets a year and I used everything except the ears, which OH used to salt and then keep handy at work to present to anyone who really messed up....anyway, the heads, I used to remove the eyes purely to avoid old jokes, excavate and set aside the brain, then boil up the head (chopped in half, so half at a time) with a few root veg and herbs, for several hours until the meat fell off the bones. The brain went in when I judged there was about half an hour left because they go to mush very easily. Then I took all the meat off the bones, chopped into fairly equal rather small pieces, and packed into small loaf tins. A day in the fridge with a weight on, and lo and behold a sort of brawn - I found there was enough 'goo' pressed out of the meat to hold it together. I mostly sliced and froze this for packing up.
Although I did this, out of principle because that was our lifestyle at the time, and I hate waste anyway, I must say I hated doing it although the result was delicious. I won't be buying one now to try....
At that price I would say it was worth it for the cheeks alone which are wonderful, braised as a casserole. Do anything with them as for beef, they are nice braised in cider with apples, onions and potatoes. Or in a curry. And if you like tongue then I guess that would be used too. In France pig cheeks are a delicacy and often sell for about 8 euros a kilo, if you can get them.
Hey Trevor, I have that book too, orange and white and very well used,, one of my faves.
I used to love using up a head, I love tongue, cooked a beef one yesterday, and homemade brawn is lovely, takes a bit of work but well worth it. I think the price is great..wish I was there!!
XX Jeannine
:o Pigs head, washing a chicken out makes me squirm a bit :D
Aha, this thread reminds me of our pig keeping days. We sold half pigs from our freezer, and no-one ever wanted the heads and feet. The day came when I took a mass of these things out of the freezer, boiled them up in a vast pan, and set the children (3) to picking out bones, teeth, eyes, ears, hooves etc.... They still remember it in their 40s.
Then I tidied up what was left and made lots of very delicious brawn. Not a great success as the children would not touch it, and there was a limit to how much brawn their parents could eat, so I never did it again.
We had a hog roast for a party recently, and I asked for the head and tried to do something similar. I was disappointed by how little meat there actually was (and I don't like tongue, unfortunately).
I have been searching for recipes since I read some replies and have found several on the internet.
I must admit that I don't think I will bother. Frankly I would need a pan the size they have in restaurants to put everything in!
This is the list of ingredients for just one recipe
Ingredients
* 1 pig's head, singed of all hair, cut in half
* 1 slated ham hock, singed
* 2 pig's trotters, singed
* 3 large onions, cut into large chunks (peeled)
* 4 carrots, trimmed and washed (unpeeled)
* 2 leeks, trimmed
* 3 sticks celery
* 1 heads garlic, split
* 2 bay leaves
* 1 tbsp black peppercorns
* handfuls stalks parsley
* 5 whole cloves
* 1 sticks cinnamon
* curlyleaves parsley, chopped
My largest pan is full if I try to boil a decent sized ham hock in it so there is no way a whole head will fit in. but here is the how the recipe says to make the brawn in case some one else wants it.
Method
1. Wash the meats and soak overnight in plenty of cold water.
2. Lift out the meats and put in a large pan of cold water, top up with cold water. Add the onions, carrots, leeks, celery, garlic, bay leaves, peppercorns, parsley stalks, cloves and cinnamon. Bring to the boil and reduce the heat to a gentle simmer for about 4 hours, skimming often.
3. When the meats are soft, remove the ears from the pig and set aside.
4. Lift all the solid ingredients from the pan and reduce the cooking juices by half, skimming as you go. Let the meats cool a little and discard the vegetables.
5. Pick over the meats, chopping the fat and skin into smallish pieces. Cut the larger pieces of meats, peeled tongue and hock meat into bigger chunks.
6. Add the parsley and a good amount of seasoning to the meat and then transfer them back to the pan of reduced liquor.
7. Ladle into a lined terrine and put to one side until it reaches room temperature, then cover with cling film and put it in the fridge overnight to set.