Important: Safety Warning
This recipe calls for animal brains or related nervous-system tissue. Cattle brain and spinal tissue can transmit bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the cause of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, which is fatal and has no treatment.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Sheep's Head
Sheep's head has so little meat belonging to it, either inside or out, that it seems to many persons as though it were scarcely worth the trouble it gives. Nevertheless, it constitutes good nourishing food at a moderate expense, and when it is liked at all it is very much liked. Several recipes are here given for preparing it. It is one of the ancient national dishes of Scotland, and to dwellers north of the Tweed is almost always welcome, not only on account of its intrinsic excellence, but also because of the associations which belong to it. The village of Duddingston, near Edinburgh, was long celebrated for this dish. A sheep's head may be stewed with or without the trotters and the pluck; nourishing and wholesome broth may be made from it; it may be hashed, curried, or served as a ragout, or it may be made into a pie. When sauces are required for it, those usually served with cow-heel or boiled mutton are the best adapted for it. Some cooks prefer the head of a ram to that of a wether, though it needs longer boiling.