Weird Deli Meats

I was in a Publix the other day with my 21 year old son, and we admired the coldcuts together.

He moonlighted for a summer as a deli clerk when he was still in high school. So he knows his deli meats, for the most part.

But I asked him, while the woman behind the counter sliced us some nice rosemary ham, whether or not he had ever tried some exotic staples: liverwurst, head cheese, olive loaf, pimiento loaf.

The answer was no. My son likes prosciutto. He likes Genoa salami. He likes fatty mortadella. He’s never tried these other coldcuts that were the standards of my childhood, growing up with a cranky old omnivorous Danish grandfather. Head cheese, in particular, was a favorite of his. Head cheese appealed to Pop’s “waste not, want not” attitude. For the uninitiated, head cheese is a collection of little meat bits carved from the heads of pigs (nose, ears, jaws, etc.) suspended magically in clear gelatin. Pop was forever complaining about not being about to get a good blood sausage. Yeeesh.

So when I returned to Publix today to get a little more, I asked the girl behind the counter for free samples of head cheese and olive loaf. She kindly wrapped each in its own wax paper blanket with a smile. I asked her if she’d ever tried either. She looked at me as if I had tentacles growing out of my forehead.

And when I saw my son 30 minutes later, I offered him a taste of both rarities. Unfortunately, though, by then the gelatin in the head cheese had melted from the warmth of my hand, so I was left with moist nose and ear bits, not a slice of history. And he politely declined the olive loaf as well. I tried a piece of the overly wet head cheese…man, was it salty. And the olive loaf was a disappointment, too. It seemed even greasier than I remember.

Thank God I had some rosemary ham and fresh baby swiss to fall back upon.