Making Head Cheese

Blood sausage! Who in his right mind would make sausage - using blood? Probably nobody today would got to all that trouble, even if they had a farm, when today's supermarket shelves are stocked with food, that 80 years ago would have been beyond anyone's wildest imagination.

When the depression hit in 1929, my grandparents were luckier than many; we had a small farm where we grew our own veggies and raised a few cows, sheep, pigs, turkeys and chickens. Wild game was also plentiful, although grandpa wasn't much on hunting when Lake Manitoba, teeming with whitefish was only a few miles to the west.

Before freeze-up, about October an old cow was butchered for our winter supply of meat; smoked or canned in 1-quart jars also a fair amount was air-dried. Absolutely nothing was ever wasted that could be saved for food, no matter how tasteless it was; it was food! A note of interest: before butchering a cow, grandfather came by a bottle of white lightning (home brew) that he would pour down the cows throat; readily available from source well kept from me. He maintained this made the meat tender.

The head, (cow or pig) was held over a fire, or live coals till all the hair was burned off; any difficult or missed or hard to get at places, were finished off with a red-hot iron. Then the head was split open with an axe; the brain was discarded or given to the dog that usually walked away, while all the cavities inside the skull were thoroughly cleaned out. You could say the whole head was cut into small pieces so every bit off the skull could be thoroughly cleaned, actually scrubbed out.

The feet and the lower leg were appropriately prepared like the head; the hooves were cut back to where they could be thoroughly cleaned out; also as best I can recall the leg was cut into several pieces. All these bits and pieces were boiled for hours; then the bones were picked out, and there was a big pot full of head cheese, ready for grandmas' finishing touch. What ever her secret formulae was, I never knew but it was sure good eating; right now I would pay a good price for that. Properly prepared head cheese sets like Jell-o. Keep in mind; we had no power so nature was our fridge all winter.

Back to the Blood Sausage:

Before this show hit the road, I'd cut enough small brush to make about three stirrers at least a foot long; green brush, rich in small shoots where the leaves had just fallen off, or where I would pick off any remaining leaves. A few of these tied together made a good stirrer.

Grandma had a big bread-mixing pan almost two feet across and eight inches deep; large enough to catch any amount of blood that could be collected, as some would usually be lost or still remained in the carcass. As soon as no more could be collected, this pan was set aside where I could contribute a little to this project; I would stir the blood till the first stirrer was full of fibers, then discard it and keep stirring with the second, and even the third, till no more fibers would form and hang in the stirrer. Then grandma and my aunt would carry the pan into the kitchen where oatmeal was stirred in; also raisins and whatever spices were appropriate were added till this mix was thick enough to be packed into the sacks described in the next paragraph.

A while before this happening, grandma and my aunt had made many cotton sacks from saved flour sacks, similar to the one in Grandmas Coffeemaker, but about ten to twelve inches deep and about three inches in diameter. These were carefully and firmly packed with this mix, leaving enough material to firmly sew the top so nothing could escape. These bags were then placed in a large copper boiler and kept at a boil till they were thoroughly cooked.

Outside, we had several 2 x 12 planks about 6 feet long. One would be laid on ground. The cooked sausage would be lined up on this plank; across, about an inch apart and then a second plank was placed on top. Weights were place on top of that; rocks old iron castings, or anything that add up to about a hundred pounds to squeeze all the water out. This was left to cool, and probably to set for a few hours. That was it. Store in the root cellar; excellent food for a long cold Manitoba winter.