Look away now if you’re squeamish!

It’s been a while since I mentioned Janet Murray who shared recipes on the BBC Scottish  Home Service on Wednesdays in a programme called ‘Morning Call’. I’m not sure when ‘Morning Call’ was first broadcast, it was certainly entertaining listeners in 1960. I have a small booklet of Janet’s recipes, published in 1963 at the price of 2/6-  (two shillings and sixpence.) I recently mentioned Ruth Drew, a 1950’s English broadcaster who shared recipes and domestic advice with listeners. Her books bring her vividly to life – you can almost hear her telling you how to bake something, make something, clean something, mend something. It’s the same with Janet, her lilting Scottish voice can almost be heard as you read through her recipes and cooking advice. The little book is full of little tales about herself and her listeners – from the first page where she shares a recipe a listen sent to her for a Scots bannock – an unleavened bread. The listener had heard Janet talking about them and recalled her own granny telling her how to make them, probably in the first years  of the century, on the family farm.

Recipes which Janet shared sixty years ago are interesting, but not always what we might want to cook, for example, ‘Potted Heid’. Look away now if you’re squeamish, it’s potted cow’s head – and here is what Janet instructs us to do (imagine her gentle lilting tones):

I am always amused at the old Scots recipes for potted heid because they begin, ‘Take one cow’s head and two ox heels’, and i would not like to insist on this in my butcher’s, helpful as he is. A whole head makes an awful lot of potted heid and I use half a head and one heel, or an ox cheek and two heels. Here is the method:
Buy half  a head and one heel and get your butcher to cut it into convenient pieces for you. Wash it thoroughly in cold salty water and leave it to soak overnight in salted water.
Put it in a roomy saucepan and just cover it and no more with cold water. Bring it slowly to the boil and skim well. Cook it slowly for four hours and on no account let the water boil in. Make sure the meat is tender before you take the pan from the fire. And remember the meat must be very tender, and the heel falling to pieces, if you are to get sufficient gelatin from it to set the meat.
Take all the meat and the bones from the pot and strain the stock. (Let it sit overnight and then you can get all the fat off.)  While the head is still warm, remove all the meat from the bones. Skin teh palate and remove all fat and vein from the cheek flesh. Put all the meat through a mincer, or cut it very fine by hand.
Put the stock, quite free from fat, back into the pot, add the meat and bring to the boil, skimming if necessary. Season to taste with pepper and salt, and cook gently for half an hour. Let it cool a little before putting it into bowls, otherwise you may have a meat top and a jelly base when you turn it out.

Cows are quite big so I wonder how much brawn would be produces from even just half a head! I am not going to try this recipe – I think I might stick to the shortbread Janet describes, with orange peel, bitter almonds and caraway comfits (caraway seeds coated in icing sugar)

I have no images of cows or their heads, so I’m using an image of a fine gentleman in a kilt as my featured image.