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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Hashed Calf's Head To Boil a Calf's Head
448. A calf's head is first cut in two, down the middle, leaving the tongue whole. The brains are then taken out. Next soak the head for an hour in cold water, to get out the blood which collects in the inside, and spoils the appearance. The head is either dressed with the skin on or off; if the former, it is a much better dish. Put plenty of water in the pot, and boil very gently about two hours, if the skin is off, more or less according to size. With the skin on, it will take nearly another hour. The tongue will not take more than an hour to boil, if put in by itself, which is the best plan; and it is served with some of the brains on a separate dish. While the head is boiling, well wash the brains, and soak afterwards in salt and water. Then boil for fifteen minutes, putting them into cold water and reckoning from the time when the water begins to boil. About a dozen sage leaves should be boiled separately, and chopped up finely. These, mixed with the brains, and a slight flavour of onion (not more than a quarter of a small one), boiled with a little melted butter, make the sauce. Egg-sauce is sometimes used in addition. Ham, bacon, or tongue is generally eaten with this dish.
This is a whole-head boil built around the brains, and that is the part that rules it out. The rest of the method is sound period butchery, but it cannot be separated from the sauce the recipe is written to produce.
- The brains are the problemBovine central nervous tissue \transmit the agent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which causes variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. There is no treatment and no cooking time that destroys the agent; the fifteen-minute boil here does nothing to it.
- Why the sauce cannot simply be swappedThe brains are not a garnish. They are the whole body of the sauce, and the boiled tongue is served on a separate dish with brains beside it. Removing them leaves melted butter, sage and a quarter of an onion, which is not this recipe.
- Specified risk material is regulatedIn the UK, EU and many other jurisdictions, the brain and spinal cord of cattle above a set age are classed as specified risk material and must be removed and destroyed at the abattoir. The thresholds are set by age, so a calf may fall outside them; in practice, however, heads are now generally sold split and with the brain already removed.
- What the skin-on instruction meantThe recipe states plainly that dressing the head with the skin on makes 'a much better dish', and that a skinned head boils in about two hours against nearly three with the skin on.
- If you want the dishHead meat, cheek and tongue are still eaten and still good. Use a current recipe from a source written under present-day meat regulations rather than adapting this one.