Head Cheese, Souse, and Your Path to Enlightenment

When life presents you with lemons, make lemonade (or a super-illuminated visual album). When life presents you with a pig's head, you should prepare a cheese head or gravy — two similar rustic-style meatloafs that are prepared by boiling the pork head, pouring the scraps into a mold, cooling, slicing, and serving. How that pig's head came into your life is up to you. There are pig heads. They are not an anomaly. Almost one for every four legs and a great belly, and it would be a terrible shame to miss out on one, especially when there's so much juicy meat plus bones. Oh my god Dice. The head is stuffed with bones, and when you simmer them for several hours, a thick gelatin is released that binds the meat together. Many people think that this is the link between goodies when it comes to head cheese (which, by the way, does not contain dairy products) and sauce (which is just head cheese with vinegar added), but if you prefer bone broth, you are halfway there. It's just meat water with varying degrees of gelatinization, but then again, we're like that too, man. We also.
Place the head and legs in a large roasting pan and cover with water. Cook until the meat is separated from the bones. Remove the meat and bones from the water.Finely chop the meat, removing small bones and excess fat. Refrigerate the liquid and meat overnight, then remove the fat.Boil the liquid until there is just enough left to cover the meat. Add meat, vinegar and seasonings to taste. After adding the meat, the cheese should thicken slightly.Pour into the molds and refrigerate until the jelly forms and it is firm enough to be sliced.Cut the head in half and put all the parts of the piglet in a large saucepan, cover with enough water to cover them. Season with salt and pepper, bring the water to a boil and cook the meat until soft.Remove the meat from the water and let it cool. When the meat has cooled, peel it from the bones and cut it into small pieces. Add the spices to the liquid and cook until it is reduced by half. Strain, cool and remove the skin from the fat.Put the meat, fat, and vinegar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat, pour into the mold and add as much liquid with spices as the container will hold.Cool until firm, cut into slices and serve.