Now this is something you don't see dished up on the 25th December nowadays!
Although it would have been quite common in Medieval and Tudor England and the tradition was carried on in some Oxford Colleges into the C19, and perhaps it still is.
This dish was always served with mustard and is actually what we know now as brawn, something that I made a few times when we kept pigs. Although we always had the head cut in half before getting it back from the butcher as there is a surprising amount of meat on a pigs head, and I would put it to set in a bowl rather than putting it back in the cleaned pigs head skin!
This is the Carol sung by Steeleye Span
I wonder if butchers still sell brawn (or a pork cheese as it was often called in Suffolk)? I doubt many people under 60 even know what it is!
Back Tomorrow
Brawn is still sold by some butchers in Lincolnshire. I remember my Mother making it when I was a child and I remember enjoying it very much!
ReplyDeleteI think my mum used to buy brawn for my dad when I was a child.....don't think I've ever seen it (or wanted to try it!) since. Unpalatable as it sounds to me (and I'm a meat eater), it does make sense to make use of as much of the animal as possible.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a child in the late 1940-50s we had pork cheese with bread and not much butter (it was still on ration) for tea. Our local butcher made it. Good job I didn't know it was from a pigs head or I might have not wanted to eat it. I had brown sauce on the bread if we had no butter or margerine and I still like bread and sauce!! Val
ReplyDeleteI love that version!
ReplyDeleteI'm very glad I have never had to deal with a pig's head - or half a head. Urgh!!! (I'm a wimp). We never had brawn - I don't think Mum liked it but was made to eat it as a child.
xx
Bob was at Queen's College, Oxford in the 70s. The "Boar's Head Gaudy" feast was held then as a charity fundraiser.
ReplyDeleteNot forgetting the 'Boar's Head' carol sung by Steeleye Span or at the 9 lesson's carol service, my favourite. Though I pass on brawn!
ReplyDeleteWe call it pork cheese here. It was my mother's favourite.
ReplyDeleteWe used to sing it at school in the 80s with a papier machè boars head. The school still sing it now each year (with the same model head)
ReplyDeleteIt qas also sung at the Xmas Carol concert at the school where I work this year - I love the song.
I remember brawn in the shops as a child (I'm 51) but have never eaten it
As a child, I would be sent to buy brawn for my father. I always refused to try it! The list of things the young don't know about grows longer every year!
ReplyDeleteand what the old don't know about!
DeleteI made Brawn but the once, after a friend had had her pigs butchered. No-one would touch it so the dogs had some good meals!!
ReplyDeleteI have the Steeleye Span recording here and play it every Christmas (an sometimes throughout the year too.)
My Nan used to make brawn, it was delicious, rather like a pate and set into a basin. My in-laws used to buy brawn in Birmingham, it was one of the cheapest things to buy and they were very frugal, it was rather like chunks of pork set in a lot of jell, I did not like it, but I guess I was spoilt by Nan's far superior product.
ReplyDeleteI believe it may be what is called "head cheese" here. No cheese involved at all. Instead it is meat set in a jelly. When I worked at a meat counter in a market some 30 plus years ago, we would cut it in slices for people. There was also garlic head cheese. -Jenn
ReplyDeleteI was thinking the same thing - 'head cheese' . I worked in a deli back in the mid 1970s for a lady that was an immigrant of germany; she LOVED and sold head cheese at the deli. Oh I remember that like it was yesterday....
DeleteIn the Netherlands it is called "hoofdkaas" = head cheese!
DeleteWhen I was in my first years at secondary school in the mid-80s in a very small town in lower Brittany, we had "fromage de tête" as a starter at lunch, and yes it was minced meat in jelly, served in slices. I could not even look at it but my best friend was more than glad to have my share. Brittany has always been a pork country.
ReplyDeleteMaguy
You can have my share! I wouldn't be able to eat it. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteMom used to make what we called "headcheese" with the head of the pigs that were butchered on our farm. I think we all enjoyed eating it .. not sure if I would now as I have gotten squeamish as I age.
ReplyDeleteThere is a taxidermied one in a pub not far from here. It's bigger than I'd imagined it would be. Arilx
ReplyDeleteI need to look up Brawn. I wonder if it is equivalent to what we call head cheese here. Harvey loved it at one time, but hates the bought stuff as it doesn't taste like his Mom's. He also likes Blood Sausage, and Liver Sausage. Strange man I married.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
The Dutch call it head cheese, too!
DeleteSuch an interesting post! I love that you found someone singing the actual carol. It was fun to hear.
ReplyDeleteI've never been able to eat anything on a platter with a head and eyes intact. Boar's Head Carol is new to me and is quite lovely. Brawn is also something I've never heard of but I'd be willing to try it.
ReplyDeleteYou still can buy brawn at most butchers and get it in restaurants, too. I doubt that all customers know what they are eating, as you don´t recognize where the chunks of meat come from. I have never liked it. But I think it is right to eat or use every part of an animal which was killed for you. It is a form of respect.
ReplyDeleteHilde in Germany
Oh gawd ... no comment ;-)
ReplyDeleteAah yes...brawn...which was loved by my Father so...and despised by me! That jelly...eek. x
ReplyDelete