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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Calf's Head Pie
764. Well soak half a calf's head, and boil half an hour, the tongue longer; then cut the meat in pieces; stew the bones with a little mace, white pepper, or any thing that will make it good without colouring the liquor; place at the bottom of the dish some parsley, ham, tongue, and pieces of boiled egg; then put some slices of the brains, which should be boiled rather hard; add salt, and about two spoonsful of water, and cover with short crust. The liquor the bones are boiled in should be reduced till it is strong and of a nice flavour; strain it, and while the pie is hot pour as much in as the dish will hold; let it stand all night, and when wanted turn it out upside down, with parsley round. 765. A Plainer Calf's Head Pie.-Boil a calf's head one hour; when perfectly cold cut it in slices; have prepared some gravy, made from two pounds of beef; let it stand till cold; well mix some salt, pepper, mace, and Cayenne, then put some at the bottom of the piedish, then a layer of calf's head, then the cold gravy, then the spice,
The pie turns on ingredients and handling that no longer pass muster. The problems are specific and not fixable by adjusting times or temperatures.
- Brains and the BSE riskThe filling calls for slices of boiled calf's brain. Bovine central nervous system tissue bsp;brain, spinal cord, dorsal root ganglia bsp;is classed as specified risk material for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which causes variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. The infectious agent is a prion, not a microbe, and ordinary cooking does not destroy it. In the UK and EU the skull including the brain, and the spinal cord, are removed and destroyed as specified risk material in cattle over twelve months old, and heads sold for food are commonly split and cleared of nervous tissue; brain is in practice not something a domestic cook can now obtain from a beef animal.
- The head itselfEven setting the brains aside, whole calves' heads are no longer generally stocked by retail butchers, and heads that are sold are usually supplied split and cleared of nervous tissue.
- Standing overnightThe pie is filled with reduced stock, left to set at room temperature all night, then turned out and eaten cold. A meat-and-jelly pie held for hours in the danger zone is exactly the setting in which Clostridium perfringens and staphylococcal toxin thrive. Victorian larders were cold rooms; a modern kitchen is not.
- Boiling for half an hourHalf an hour will not render a calf's head tender; the recipe's own wording ("while the pie is hot") shows the meat is expected to go on cooking under the crust before the reduced bone liquor is poured in.
- What to make insteadIf you want a cold raised meat pie in this style, use a current recipe built on pork, veal shoulder or beef shin with a measured setting stock and refrigerated chilling.