Couple splits a pig's head

People boast about eating other animal bits. How is this much different?

Craigie on Main uses every bit of whole animals on its menu - not just select bits and pieces. This is their "thing". It may not be for you, but it is how our ancestors went about their business for millenia. (or, as my grandfather said, "use everything but the oink")

I guess if you really meant "to each his own", you wouldn't have made a snarky comment on the internet about it.

But I would eat that. That looks incredibly delicious. Want. Drool.

I would qualify what she wrote it boasting since it is a food and travel blog that has been running (publicly) since 2009. It looks like it's her job to do said write-up.

I guess it's boasting in that she was excited about checking it out for Bryan's birthday weekend. (I don't know Bryan's relationship to her, just that is how she described going to Craigie on Main. I have my assumption, but that's all it is.)

Pig cheek,imo, is the best part of Porky. It is like the best bacon in the world but better. If you ever have the chance to go to a whole pig roast you will see about 4-5 people usually mulling around each trying to score some more of the cheek.There has always been a small group of us,Zimmerman just exposed us is all. Don't knock it til you try it. It is fantastic.

These aren't common foods anymore, but do you really think that people from the Appalachians to the west coast used to buy pre-butchered and wrapped meats for their journeys?

For someone who slings the word "American" around a lot, you don't seem to know all that much about the country beyond your local area or current era.

Do you think old line Yankees and first-period settlers in New England ate only select cuts of meat (other than the wealthy sugar barons and slave traders)? I mean, I think that head cheese is pretty nasty but some people like it - and still make it and eat it. It isn't exactly bizarre.

It is very American, however.

Ever had a Fenway Frank?

I'm always amazed that people turn up their noses at animal organs and other parts. If you think they're bizarre foods, you clearly don't get out much. Lydia Shire had a whole section of her Biba menu devoted to offal back in the late 80s. Tony Maws was doing snout-to-tail at Craigie Street Bistrot five years before Zimmern ever appeared on TV. Every third chef in town has been doing housemade charcuterie and salumi for the last six years, the more acclaimed ones for the last dozen.

Try something besides The Cheesecake Factory, a steakhouse, magenta-spare-rib American-Chinese, or red-sauce Italian-American once in a while. You sound like you just fell off the turnip truck.

If that's what it takes for people to eat more of the animals they kill and have some of the tastiest parts over some stupid hang-up about eating "a face" or whatever, then so be it. It's only a good thing!

Have you ever tried eating a pig's head meat? Or pickled trotters? Or any of the other things you are whining about?

Expanding your culinary boundaries beyond burgers and pizza is important. Culture is food. Learning about cultures other than your own is the only way we're going to improve the current geopolitical climate in the world. Of course, that doesn't play well with your hatred of anything not you, but there it is.