Fromage de Tête

 

An innocent enough looking block. Like a shiny meatloaf perhaps? 

The  taste; meaty, salty, clove? 

The texture; tender, but slightly gelatinous, fat, but not too fatty. The perfect texture for on top of hearty toast.

To the French Fromage de Tête,  cheesed head. To the Cajun 'Hogs Head Cheese'.   The head part will become self evident shortly, but 'cheese', what does cheese have to do with it?  

Froma is the Latin term for the box that cheese was placed into and pressed. And as such became the root to the French word for lovely curds of milk pressed together in cheese, fromage. Similarly lovely pieces of velvety pork can be pressed into a form, covered in delicious aspic and chilled.

So no cheese was involved in the making of this delight, but there was much Head.

 
My local and much loved butcher Cleaver and Co. was lucky enough to have a local pork farmer come to them with a handful of pigs and quite the story....

The Farmer, let us call him Mick Donald, is getting up there in age, he is actually quite Old.  Old Mick Donald had a farm, a farm with a beautiful Devon Black sow, let us call her Miss Piggy, in the prime of her life. She was out in the pen, enjoying the sun in nothing but her birthday suit, doing her Miss Piggy thing when a wild boar  strolls by and sees her beautiful hams. It is love at first oink, he knows he has to get a taste of her porker, and breaks through the fence.

This boar is quite the gentle pig, and he tells Miss Piggy how beautiful her butt is (that is the shoulder, not what you were thinking of).  They share some lovely slop, and an after dinner mud bath.  Then Miss Piggy gets what she was really after and squeals like a pig, because she is a pig.

The Boar asks for Miss Piggy's number and promises to call. But she never hears from him again. But 115 days from that day she sees his face again in her little piglets. And those little piglets grew up to be what every little pig wants to be when they grow up, Pork.


So I couldn't pass up on a half Devon, half wild boar of my own.

The head was split and quartered, brain removed. Cheek and jowl reserved for another dish.  Head and tongue were simmered with mirepoix, garlic, pepper, clove and a little Herbs de Provence for about 3 hrs. The meat removed from the pot, stock strained and returned to pot to reduce.

The meat is allowed to cool to touch, separated from fat and bone. Meat is coarsely ground and packed gently into a terrine. When the stock has reduced by half, seasoning is adjusted, strained again and poured over meat. Chill, slice enjoy.