Read the label. How many times have we been told that?
But with Memorial Day barreling down upon me, making for a short work week and early deadlines, I committed to writing about souse before I read the label.
I procured my first few slices at the Border Station in Moyock, N.C., a gas station-convenience store-souvenir shop that sits smack on the Virginia-North Carolina line.
Bypass the Cheerwine and colas bobbing in ice chests near the cash register, stroll to the end of the corridor of canned peanuts and jams, and - bam! - there it is, a refrigerator case of barbecue, side meat, slab bacon - and souse.
I had a vague notion of what souse is - a down-home relative of chitterlings (which I've heard are wonderful when cooked correctly) and kin to the jars of unnaturally pink pickled pigs' feet that I've occasionally seen (but not ordered) in barbecue joints alongside country roads.
Border Station sells packages of four thin slices of souse loaf laid out on a white Styro-foam tray and wrapped in plastic for $2.99 a pound. The slices looked slightly limp and resembled an olive loaf, though milky white and embedded with pig-flesh-colored strips and red pepper flecks.
Later, I found completely different-looking souse at Jeb's Corner Market, a meat and seafood shop in Carrollton. That souse was darker and firmer and looked more akin to salami.
Finally, back at home, I read the labels.
We all know that ingredients, by law, are listed on the label in the order of volume. The first ingredient is the most prevalent, the second is the second-most, and so on.
The first ingredient on both labels gave me pause: pork snouts. Talk about honest labeling. The second was pork skins. Both packages listed spices, vinegar and gelatin to hold it all together.
My stomach did a quick Replica Omega Planet Ocean Watches turnaround.
Replica Tag Heuer Swiss Aquaracer WatchesFurther research revealed that souse is traditionally made from a whole boiled hog's head, but it can come from pigs' ears, knuckles and feet (aka trotters), which yield enough natural gelatin to hold the mass together.
Another quick turnaround.
I called Chef Sydney Meers for a pep talk. Meers owns the restaurant Stove in the Port Norfolk neighborhood of Portsmouth. His specialty is neo-Southern cooking, and he's bold with ingredients such as pork brains.
"We scramble souse with eggs, and I've put it in (savory) cheesecakes when I can get it," he said. "My daddy liked to put it on a little white bread with a piece of liverwurst. He'd go to town with it.
"It's delicious."
Other people mentioned eating souse accompanied by pickles, doused in vinegar or alongside potato salad.
So I made a batch of my favorite potato salad and sat down to my first bites of souse.
The Moyock souse, pale and glistening on my plate, seemed pretty hard-core. I took a bite. The texture was extremely gelatinous, and the pork flavor was straightforward. I could tell I wasn't eating the best part of the animal.
But to my surprise - and relief - the souse from Carrollton tasted like eastern North Carolina barbecue with big, pleasing flavors of pork and vinegar.
Other articles:
http://ist-solidtyre.com/manageadmin/All-tax-breaks-are-not-created.html
http://wpblogs.co.tv/mywatches/2010/05/28/good-golly-miss-holly-smother/