Head cheese

Head cheese is in fact not a cheese, but rather a sausage made of meat taken from the head of a calf or pig (sometimes a sheep or cow) that would not otherwise be considered appealing. It may also include meat from the feet and heart.

The meat is seasoned and combined with gelatin, then cooked in a mold. Head cheese is usually eaten at room temperature, or sliced as a sandwich meat. In England head cheese is referred to as brawn, and in France it is called fromage de tête, which translates as "cheese of the head".

Perhaps this dish was the inspiration for William Heath Robinson's macabre drawing Remarkable case of absence of mind in a Dutch restaurant (1912), in which a diner, distracted by his newspaper, mistakes his sleeping neighbour's bald head for an Edam cheese, and cuts a slice from it.