It’s almost hog-killin’ time. 

It is likely that most of our ancestors just a generation or two back participated in a yearly community effort to put up pork for the winter. Here in Jefferson, it’s mid-October, and we’re still seeing 80+ degree temperatures, but soon enough it’ll be cool even during the day, which is perfect weather for outdoor processing like they did way back when.

Of course, we don’t do that–we use inspected processors to turn our happy pigs into delicious and convenient packages of pork cuts that are legal for resale. Even if you were interested in buying your own whole hog, you would probably still opt to spend the $200 to have someone else do the hard work of slaughter, evisceration, dehairing, cleaning, chilling, cutting and wrapping. It is certainly hard work, and we appreciate our modern-day processing facilities and freezers instead of having to salt all that pork!

So even though we don’t do the processing the old-fashioned way, we can certainly still enjoy old-fashioned ways of consuming the whole hog. Hog’s Head Cheese is one recipe most have heard of but few have tried (confession–that includes me, too!) But when I was researching the folklore behind hog-killin’, a tradition that fascinates me, I found this super-simple recipe and am anxious to try it!

By the way, no cheese is involved in hog’s head cheese. I would be interested to know the history of the name of this dish as well. 

This recipe for Hog’s Head Cheese is from Food, Folklore, and Art of Lowcountry Cooking by Joseph Dabney and available on Google Books, along with several other old-timey recipes in the book preview.

• 1 hog’s head
• 2 quarts water
• 2 medium onions
• 1 Tbs vinegar
• salt and pepper to taste

Place head in pot with water. Bring to boil and simmer until meat drops from bones (about 4-6 hours). Remove from water, let cool, and pick off the meat, reserving the bones for your next batch of homemade stock. Coarsely grind or finely chop the meat. Cook the onions in the water for 5 minutes, then add the meat, salt, and pepper, adjusting for flavor. Pour into a loaf pan and cool until set. Slice and serve with greens and rice.

If you get to make this before I do, let me know what you think!