108I sat in my office lunchroom
in Cambridge, Ontario,
surrounded by five colleagues,
all partaking in our daily
lunch routine. Subway was
present. McDonald’s was
there. A homemade sandwich.
A salad. And on my plate, a
thick slice of my gelatinous
homemade headcheese on spelt
sourdough bread. Believe it or
not, my attempt at traditional
headcheese wasn’t actually that
tasty, but I pretended it was as I
vigorously defended my packed
lunch and tried to wax eloquent
about the concept of nose-to-
tail eating to my somewhat
incredulous lunchmates.
Nose-to-tail eating is a
growing movement toward
eating as many parts of an
animal as possible so it doesn’t go
to waste. It seeks to respect the
animal’s sacrifice by honouring
all the cuts of meat, not just the
choicest. But truth be told, it
turns out that nose-to-tail eating
is quite laborious, especially
when you are the one doing
the cooking.
Take, for example, my
headcheese, a traditional dish
made from the whole head of
a pig. You just need to soak the
head in a saltwater brine. Then
just boil it in an herb-seasoned
massive pot of water. Then just
separate the edible meats that
fall off the skull, boil down the
remaining stock to the point
where it gels thickly upon
cooling, add the meat pieces,
and chill it in a nice rectangular
form. Twenty-four hours later—
just slice and voilà! An instant
delectable treat to share and
enjoy in the company of your
work colleagues. (Note: I was
only able to convince one co-
worker to try some.)
In theory, nose-to-tail eating
was a concept my wife, Claire,
and I were deeply committed
to. Following our discovery of
what, to us, was the atrocities
of the industrial agriculture
system, we longed to be able to
opt out, specifically as it relates
to meat. Dreams of raising our
own homestead hogs, pressing
our own sausages and curing our
own bacon permeated our minds.
Within a few years, we had
settled our first homestead. We
purchased hog panels, electric
fencing and solar energizers, plus
researched watering systems and
sourced locally grown organic
grain. Those pigs were going
to till up the plot for our future
vegetable garden. They would
eat our kitchen scraps. They
would thrive outdoors as nature
intended. We were ready to
raise our first pigs.
What we weren’t ready to do
was deal with the incredible
bounty of meat and fat that came
from our beloved pigs. If we were
going to respect and honour the
pig, we were going to have to gain
some serious thrifty kitchen
skills—skills long lost by theFOOD & RECIPES: NOS E-T O -TA I L E AT I NG