Went grocery shopping this morning at my local Harris Teeter grocery store. This store is huge, and carries many things you wouldn’t commonly find in a smaller store, like buffalo meat and flaxseed oil. I wasn’t shopping for those, mind you, as I’m not in the market for naked oiled buffalo meat wrestling.
Because they’re so big, they have a hot food bar, with Chinese and Italian food in the afternoon and breakfast in the morning. So today, going past the breakfast bar, what do I see?
Livermush!
For those who aren’t blessed to live in North Carolina, livermush is pork, pork liver, pork “head parts,” cornmeal, and I’m pretty sure other things I don’t want to know about, although I don’t know what could be worse than “head parts.” It’s a traditional Southern dish, particularly common in NC. Heck, we’ve even got a livermush festival in these parts.
Holy cow, I haven’t had that since I was a child! They used to serve it at my day care, along with “Russian tea.” Actually, the “Russian tea” was iced tea mixed with Tang, and it was utterly revolting to me. But the livermush, I’d eat.
Incidentally, in looking for info to tell you poor unfortunate Yankees what this was, I found this alarming line on the Neese’s website: “Neese’s has special prices on their Institutional packs of sausage and liver pudding.” I don’t know about you, but I’m leery of institutional packs of liver pudding.
I hadn’t thought about it in years, but seeing it on the breakfast bar, I could instantly taste it again. I was transported back to Kiddie Korner, and HAD to get some breakfast.
I loaded up, with scrambled eggs, sausage, pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes (I told you this was a hoity toity grocery store), and the piece de resistance, a slice of livermush. What they were offering (pictured on the plate above) is a little bit browner than the traditional brown/gray speckled mixture, and a little smaller, but what do you expect from a breakfast bar in a grocery store?
Rushed home and just had a bite. It’s got the same texture – soft and mushy, but with some granulation from the cornmeal and occasional bits of hard stuff, which I’ll guess is bone. The taste is a little bit blander than I remember – it could use more sage and pepper, and maybe even some red pepper. After swallowing, though, an aftertaste lingers in the mouth, and the proper feel comes back. Ahhh, I’m eight years old again, and they’re wheeling the cheap metal lunch cart into the room. We all line up for livermush and grits, served on doubled paper plates.
I wouldn’t eat this every day, but it was an interesting trip down memory lane. And if you ever want to make your own, you could try this recipe. It doesn’t even use head parts.
Bon apetit!
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