My last post about a new bacon, cured in Hogshead Scotch, was the perfect segue to this post, about what to do with an actual hog’s head – or two!  (How hogshead came to be the name for a 63-gallon barrel, I have no idea!)

In English, brawn, from the Middle French word braon, meaning “muscle” (from which we get our word brawny) also refers to the flesh of a boar and, in cookery, a potted meat made from the pig’s head.  It’s what the French call fromage de tête or “headcheese” as it’s commonly called in this country.  If you’ve ever had this treat down South, you’ll have heard it called “souse,” from the same root as “sauce,” which means to pickle or immerse in brine (hence the term “soused” for someone who’s had too much to drink).

Brawn is my latest attempt effort, following in Fergus Henderson’s offal footsteps, and it’s especially appealing to me because it does literally include both head and feet.  Like the Trotter Gear I made last month, it’s another dish featuring “giving nodules” of meat, suspended in a rich, meaty gelatin. (more…)

After spelunking in some of the abysses opened up by the word “abligurition,”  here is something lighter.  Perhaps even golden.

I did not find this image so much as it found me, arrested me, gaping out from the November cover of American Craft.  (It’s an uncanny moment when something you’re pondering, turning over in the dark recesses of your mind suddenly looms up before you, confronts you, and mocks you, sticking its tongue out at you.)

This is a still image from a 12-minute video work by Lauren Kalman, called “tongue gilding,” which is part of a series she has done on Hard Ware.

Ware, in this sense, stems back to Old English and means “manufactured articles, products of art or craft, goods.”  Ware does not necessarily refer to something that you wear, although there is a variant of the verb wear spelled “ware” (in Scottish dialect).  And the root these verbs come from, the Old Norse verja, means not just “to clothe,” but also “to invest, to spend, and to expend.”  So, tangentially at least, we are still moving very much in the orbit of abligurition as a prodigal expenditure.

Finally, Webster’s speculates that ware and its Old English root waru, in the sense of “goods,” is “probably akin” to the Old English word wær, which means ware, in the sense of being aware, beware, or wary.  So let us proceed cautiously, in the knowledge that not all that glitters is gold.

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David Sax considers pickled tongue an essential part of “the holy trio” of classic Jewish deli fare.   Sadly, pickled tongue has fallen out of favor, and is now more like the poor stepsister, the one who’s kept at home and not taken to the ball.

I did put it on the menu for our tasting party last month, but a lot of people simply couldn’t bring themselves to touch something with such an anatomical look or label.  Those brave enough to eat some liked it a lot. As the corned beef and pastrami kept disappearing, Stewart Pequignot sidled up to me and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “That tongue is really the best thing here!”  Jason Brechin also liked it best and was disappointed that there wasn’t any left to order a few weeks later.  (I’m not called This Little Piggy for nothing!)  So, as soon as I get my next batch of pork tongues from Stan, I’ll be making more, for cognoscenti like them.

In reviving it, I’ve taken some liberties – this ain’t your bubbe’s pickled tongue! First of all, the tongue is pork, instead of beef. Second, the seasonings are much more exotic: coconut palm sugar ground with fresh ginger, and “long” pepper from Bali. Here’s my recipe for the brine:

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As I commented to mochapj, it’s a little odd that Americans are getting so hepped up about nduja – which, depending on who you read and who you believe, is a fermented, raw, spreadable salami, made from pork belly and God alone knows what other bits (liver, lights, brain, skin, etc.) – while we’re still so squeamish about ALL these things: raw meat, let alone fermented meat, let alone offal. Acquire some nduja, and you can expect to be mobbed by people who read the Dining section of the NY Times; announce that you’re having tongue or brain for dinner and don’t be surprised if you’re dining alone.

Every time he takes some of his hogs to slaughter now, Stan Schutte saves the tongues from being thrown out with the trash, and I continue to relish them! As I’ve said before, it’s not enough to have tongue on the brain; I also need to have it in my mouth, to savor it, and digest it.

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Ever since Suzanne turned me on to the word “abligurition,” I’ve been talking the talk on tongue. With the last group of hogs he took to slaughter, Stan Schutte was able to save me the tongues, so now I finally have a chance to walk the walk and cook with tongue. No abligurition here, in the sense of “prodigal expense for food.” Curiously, no one else has any interest in pork tongues, so Stan just threw them in for free.

But I still anticipate abligurition, in the root sense of the tongue being “off,” “away,” absent or alienated from itself. My tentative stabs at dissecting the tongue, taking it apart conceptually, keep coming back to a recursive moment that is fraught with pleasure or peril: when we are forced “to eat our own words,” when the fruits of a prodigal tongue return to haunt us. This whole doubling back or folding of the tongue back on itself, layering of tongue upon tongue, can be brought home for us by the simple act of eating tongue.

Since the tongue is an extremely strong and highly developed muscle, it takes quite a bit of slow cooking to tenderize it. Before I cook it, I want to smoke it. And before I smoke it, I want to pickle or brine it, to to help keep it moist through all the smoking and cooking, to cure it, and to add some aromatic flavors.

So here’s what I’m doing:

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