Recipes: Liver Mush & Hog Lights Stew

These are genuine down-home recipes, taken from The Treasury of White Trash Cooking, by Ernest and Trisha Mickler.

LIVER MUSH

• 1 hog liver, cut up, washed and picked clean of the membranes
• 3/4 cups of coarse ground cornmeal
• Salt & black pepper
• 1 Tbsp thyme
• 1 Tbsp sage
• 1 tsp flake red pepper

Cook liver in salted water until tender. Drain and mash to a paste. Make a sluice of the liver and one cup of the liver juice. Put in a pot and bring up to a boil while adding the cornmeal, till it gits (sic) good and thick. Add seasonings. Scrape into a mold of some kind and let it get cold. Remove and slice. It’s a meal in one.

Comments: Sick. When I was a kid, my mom used to boil liver for the cat, and I can personally vouch for the fact that it stinks.

HOG LIGHTS STEW
(”lights” are the lungs and the liver of a pig, cooked together)

• 1 set of hog lights
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 toes garlic, chopped
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• Flour

Chop your lights up into bite-size pieces. Fry down in a heavy pot with the onion and garlic till it is brown. Add water to cover, salt and pepper, and stew till tender. If it’s not thick enough for you, use a little flour to make it thicker. Spoon that over rice and some Scratch Backs* on the side, and you’re fixed.

* Scratch backs are pig skin and attached fat, salted, rolled in cornmeal, and fried. They turn out very crunchy, thus the name “Scratch Backs” – they “scratch your back” going down.