Head Cheese (1831)

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   OED has "head cheese" as an Americanism and has 1841.


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ITEM #752
September, 1831
THE LADY'S BOOK
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Volume III - Page 137

FRANCES BURKE.
(...)
She welcomed Frances with the most frank and cordial familiarity, and presented her sons and daughters by their different names - then a troop of little black children came forward and the same introduction was demanded for them. When she entered the house she found a blazing fire and the table set out with all the dainties of Dutch cookery, crullers, rulleges, << head-cheese>>  and preserves, to all of which the numerous family, partly assembled, did ample justice, while the little black children performed their antics in a remote part of the room. Frau Vanderhoof's family was the true picture of a Dutch residence. The parents of the black children had once been slaves but now they did not even retain the name and were treated as pets by the family.
(...)



   Two from Literature Online, cited because I just like Melville:


1. Cummins, Maria Susanna, 1827-1866 [Author Record]
Haunted Hearts. (1864) 3Kb
Haunted Hearts. 1Kb
Found 1 hit:
Main text 1Kb
CHAPTER XXVII. SUPPER AT THE PIPE AND BOWL. 1Kb
...of her sourkrout and hogs-  head cheese; but the "Pipe and...

2. Melville, Herman, 1819-1891 [Author Record]
Redburn: His First Voyage . . . (1849) 857Kb
Redburn: His First Voyage . . . 854Kb
Found 2 hit:
Main text 793Kb
CHAPTER XXVIII. HE GOES TO SUPPER AT THE SIGN OF THE BALTIMORE CLIPPER. 15Kb
...laden with farmers' slices of  head-cheese; and at the opposite end,...
...and sitting down before the  head-cheese, soon razed it to its...