Pigs cheeks were a delicacy weren't they and used for brawn, which is something else I couldn't bring my to eat along with sweetbreads!
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Hello there all you seekers after weird and wonderful recipes. When I was a young bride, all of fifty-three years ago; I thought I'd impress my new husband's rural Devon relatives by making brawn as one of our gifts to them, on the occasion of our first visit to stay with them.
My mother, who had been a professional cook at a, 'Gentlemen's Club' in London, was used to making all the things that her gentlemen liked; including brawn.
So, having borrowed her recipe, I bought a half pig's head from our butcher, and soaked it, and trimmed all the bristles off, and then cooked the wretched thing for what seemed like hours.
I won't bore (boar perhaps?) you with all the details of the preparation of the meat, and the herbs and spices; and the filtering and clarifying of the jelly, with egg-white and eggshells. But in the end, I was left with two large basins of glistening pinkish brawn.
Off we went to Devon, where my brawn was given pride of place on an enormous floral meat plate, surrounded by hard boiled eggs, mustard and home-made redcurrant jelly.
The family Patriarch carved the brawn into generous slices, and served the assembled family, with me, swelling with pride to have impressed such capable farming folk with my culinary abilities.
Then someone took a mouthful. and there was a sharp crack.
"B****** H*** It's broken moi tooth!" Came the anguished cry.
Then, he spat out onto his plate, not only his own tooth, but also, an unmistakable blackened tooth belonging to the deceased pig.
I really thought I'd removed
all the pigs teeth, before potting up.
Ah Well ...
