Hogshead Cheese

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 2/8/03 7:31:47 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM
writes:

> 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...

In a message dated 11/17/02 3:19:15 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM
writes:

>   This is from the online ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES.
>   April 1848, GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK, volume 36, pg. 233:
>
>... practice. There were plates of coarse dough-nuts, crullers, and waffles,
all
> children of the same family. Also, hogs-head cheese, smeer-case and
scrapple;

Head cheese in MWCD10 is "a jellied loaf or sausage made from edible parts of
the head, feet, and sometime tongue and heart esp. of a pig"

(Remember the old saying "Two things you don't want to know what goes into
them: laws and sausages")

Barry Popik has now supplied us with two citations for something called
"hogshead cheese".  Is it the same thing as head cheese?

Maybe.  It is made from a hog's head.

Maybe not.  A "hogshead" is a type of wooden barrel or cask, in colonial
times much used for shipping tobacco (which also gave its name to a unit of
fluid measure, of variable size but around 60 to 70 gallons).  Was there in
the 19th Century a food which was called "hogshead cheese" (perhaps because
it was shipped in large barrels) and was distinct from "head cheese"?
Perhaps a German ethnic food, since in the above quotes it is associated with
sauerkraut and schmierkase (cottage cheese)?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

List members have been known to jump on Barry Popik for what he writes but
I'd like to compliment him for something he did not write.

In a message dated 2/3/03 5:24:51 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bapopik at AOL.COM
writes:

>    31 August 1930, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. E3:
>     Where the ice came from may remain a mystery, but it is reliably
reported
> that bartenders in the Savoy and Carlton (London--ed.) supplied ice with
> whisky and soda or gin and tonic-water without complaining.
>
>     1 April 1934, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. BR12 (Review of the book OH!
DEFINITELY
> by Maurice Lincoln):
>     There is so much comfortable drinking of side-cars, gin and tonic,
whisky
> and soda that it is a thirst-making book.

Note that Barry does NOT cite the old story that gin-and-tonic was invented
by Europeans in the tropics to have a palatable way to take quinine.  The
Argument From Silence tends not to be convincing, but if the story about
gin-and-tonic as an anti-malarial had been common in the early 1930's, it
would have been likely to show up in the New York TImes.  Hence I strongly
suspect that the anti-malarial origin of "gin and tonic" is an etymythology,
simply because Barry has not found it.

So far all I have discovered for certain is that for at least some people
"gin and bitters" is made with Angostura bitters, not qunine ("tonic") water.
 Also that there are people who drink gin-and-Fresca.

The following, from URL
            http://www.twofresh-twofold.com/writing/chisoc.links/gin.htm
are for entertainment only since they sound like etymythologies or that the
writer did his research in the bottom of a gin glass:

[Circa 1700] The English begin distilling gin and call it "Dutch courage" for
its effect on and discovery by British soldiers who passed through Holland.

Tonic water is invented in the 1870s to disguise the bitter taste of the
quinine prescribed to fight malaria in the tropics. Gin complements tonic and
gin and tonic is born.

The true Martini is born. Martini di Arma di Taggia, bartender at New York's
Hotel Knickerbocker, mixes up equal parts of gin and dry Vermouth and serves
it to John D. Rockefeller.

            - Jim Landau (who drinks Fresca without gin)