Shoat's Head
Get a shoat's head and clean it nicely. Boil and chop in pieces. Season with: 2 tablespoonfuls tomato catsup. 2 tablespoonfuls walnut catsup. 2 cups water. A little flour. 1 large spoonful butter. Pepper and salt. Have two or three hard-boiled eggs, cut them in half and lay on the top of the head; set it in the oven to bake.
Veal or mutton head, can be cooked in the same way, but are not so nice.--Mrs. R.
A whole young pig's head, boiled until the meat falls away, then chopped, sauced and browned in the oven. The method is sound; the shopping is the hard part.
- What a shoat isA shoat is a weaned young pig, roughly two to four months old, so the head is smaller and more tender than a full hog's. Order a split half or whole head from a butcher who breaks down pigs; ask for it skinned or with the hair removed, the eyes out and the ears trimmed, which is what "clean it nicely" covers.
- The boil is the hingeThe head needs 2 1/2 to 3 hours at a bare simmer, until the meat lifts from the bone and the ear cartilage yields. Rushing it leaves tough cheek and jowl that no amount of oven time will fix. Cool it enough to handle, then pick and chop, discarding bone, gristle and the hard palate.
- Walnut catsupAn English condiment of green walnuts salted, pressed and spiced — dark, salty and sharp, closer to Worcestershire than to tomato ketchup. It is still sold by British specialty grocers; a tablespoon of Worcestershire plus a teaspoon of mushroom ketchup stands in for the same savory-sour note.
- Tomato catsup of 1879Tomato catsup of the 1870s -- Bottled catsup then was thinner, more vinegary and far less sweet than modern ketchup. Cut back if you are using a supermarket bottle, or the two tablespoons will read as sugar against the pork.
- "A little flour" and the sauceCook the flour in the melted butter first, then add the 2 cups liquid — better still, use the strained head broth rather than plain water, which is what gives the dish body. A rounded tablespoon of flour to 2 cups liquid gives a loose gravy; the original expects it to be a sauce, not a glue.
- OvenNo temperature is given. A moderate oven, 350F, for 25 to 30 minutes is enough to set the sauce and color the top; the meat is already cooked. Add the halved hard-boiled eggs in the last 10 minutes so the yolks do not turn chalky and gray.
- YieldA shoat's head yields perhaps 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 lb of picked meat, enough for four to six. It is rich, and wants something sharp alongside -- pickle, greens, or plain boiled potatoes.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878) was assembled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by Virginia housekeepers credited by name or, as here, by initial only, which is why this one ends "--Mrs. R." It belongs to the hog-killing calendar of the Upper South, when cold weather meant a whole animal came apart at once and every part had a destination: hams and shoulders to the smokehouse, fat to lard, and the head, feet and offal eaten fresh within days because they would not keep. Head meat is often said to have gone into souse or scrapple; this version instead treats it as a made dish, chopped and sauced and browned like a hash. The two catsups mark the book's English inheritance eighteenth-century walnut catsup was a standard English store-cupboard sauce, and its survival in a Virginia kitchen beside the newer tomato bottle shows the older taste giving way to the one that won. The note that veal or mutton head will do "but are not so nice" is the plain judgment of a pork region.