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Hog's Jowl, Greens and Potlikker
2 HOG'S JOWLS 1/2 PECK GREENS VINEGAR 2 TURNIPS SALT AND PEPPER Boil a pair of those fat hog's cheeks in plenty salted water, 1/2 hour. Then pack in the greens and cook the other 1/2 hour. Salt and pepper them at the finish and stir in enough vinegar to make 'em tasty.
The pot liquor from this juicy dish is what deep-South Southerners refer to as potlikker or potlicker.
When no pig jowls are to be had, either fresh or smoked, a hunk of salt pork is used. When less than half a peck of greens is used, one hog's jowl is plenty. Hog's jowls are all the better when smoked. The smoky savor just suits the smothered greens; and Smithfield razorback "hawgs" fed on wild acorns and fattened on peanuts produce the best-tasting jowls.
Everything is eaten together, of course, out of a bowl or soup basin with knife, fork and spoon. And potlikker is just suited to the dunking of fingers of corn pone or hoe cake, although there are those who prefer to sip it, and the ancient argument still goes on between the two schools. Turnip, beet and mustard are the usual greens used in this, but if none are handy, dandelion, poke or other wild greens are simply swell. Collards are popular, too, when stewed up with other parts of the pig, such as his snoot, and neck bones. Pig's feet and greens are preferred food for camp or castle, and so are pig's tails with any kind of cabbage or kale-except maybe skunk cabbage.
A one-pot supper built on cured pork and a large volume of greens. Two things need attention before you start: the jowl is a salt-cured cut, and the half-hour cooking times are optimistic for anything tougher than young turnip tops.
- What a hog's jowl isThe cheek of the pig, sold either fresh or, more often, cured and smoked as jowl bacon in Southern markets and by mail order; the recipe allows either. Pieces usually run around 1 to 1 1/2 lb. Slab bacon, salt pork or a pair of smoked ham hocks all stand in acceptably.
- Half a peck of greensA peck is 8 dry quarts, so half a peck is 4 quarts of loosely packed leaves, a large volume that cooks down to very little. Two large bunches of turnip or mustard greens, or three of collards, is roughly the working equivalent.
- Salt the water carefullyCured or smoked jowl carries a great deal of salt into the pot, and the recipe calls for salting again at the end. Start with unsalted water, taste the likker after the pork has simmered, and season only at the finish.
- Give the pork longerThirty minutes will not soften a whole jowl. Simmer it 1 to 1 1/2 hours until the meat pulls easily from the fat, then add the greens. Collards want 45 minutes to an hour after that; turnip, beet and mustard greens want 20 to 30.
- The turnipsTwo turnips appear in the ingredient list and are never mentioned again. Peel and quarter them and add them with the greens; they need about 25 minutes.
- Vinegar at the end onlyCider vinegar, stirred in off the heat, a tablespoon at a time until the fat is cut. Adding it early toughens the greens and dulls their colour. A cruet of pepper vinegar on the table is the usual Southern practice.
- Skip the pokePokeweed is listed here among the casual wild substitutes, but all parts of the plant are toxic and even young shoots require repeated boiling in changed water. The half-hour simmer given here does not come close. Use dandelion or the cultivated greens instead.
- YieldTwo jowls and half a peck of greens will feed six generously, with plenty of potlikker. The single-jowl version noted in the text serves three or four.