"livermush" news and stories

Liver is a perpetual bottom dweller on Americans' list of favorite foods. This makes livermush -- yeah, really -- an especially hard sell. Once a staple of textile mill worker lunches, the creamy loaf of pig parts has lately become even more of a lunch pail pariah.

Changing tastes, mill closings and an onslaught of snack-wielding vending machines have conspired to nearly wipe out western North Carolina's signature liver, skin, snout and cornmeal hybrid, a khaki-colored treat pioneered by scrapple-loving German farmers who followed the Great Wagon Road south in search of work. But community leaders in Marion, a thrifty little foothills town where a turned-over tomato truck is occasion to break out the home canning supplies, are banking on livermush's resurgence. Local livermush makers suspect the poor man's pate could become the current recession's official lunchmeat.

Transcribed from the Pennsylvania Dutch Recipe Book
Culinary Arts Press 1964

Oatmeal Scrapple

3 lbs lean pork
1 large bone
1 lb. (about 5 cups) uncooked rolled oats
5 teapoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons pepper
5 teaspoons onion juice

Put pork and bone into a large heavy kettle and cover with water; simmer until meat is tender. Remove the meat from bone and cool; put meat through fine blade of food chopper. Return meat to the liquid, bring to boiling, and stir in the rolled oats, seasonings and onion juice. Cook slowly for 1 hr. Pour the mixture into well-greased loaf pans and set aside to cool. Cover and store in refrigerator. When ready to serve, slice and fry as for Scrapple.

I'll explain more later, but for right now, those of you who know what the heck I'm talking about -- wanna take a poll?

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