A Quick Diagnosis of Jim's Problem [by David Stafford]

[Thom Courcelle]

A story in four pictures...

This looks like an advertisement for the 1956 anniversary edition of the Hormel canned goods recipe cookbook

Thanks David!  Let me know if I should mail you back some antacid tablets or something for "Jim"...

[Sabrina S]

What are you talking about, tripes are one of my favorite dishes! I also asked for it at my birthday  - and not only once. Nowadays I live with my husband and he gets nauseous by just smelling it (the cleaned one, not fresh from the cow, so ... ). Another of my favorites is cows tongue. I grew up on a farm so ... we ate such things, too. Nowadays I am vegan on a daily basis but every few years I can't resist to eat what other people call dog food. :D

[Ilya Semenenko-Basin]

I, too, was a vegetarian in my youth, influenced by Leo Tolstoy's ideas, but then doctors persuaded me to eat meat occasionally :-) :-) 

[David Stafford]

Thanks for the great story, Thom. Real Americana...I found this on some old microfiche I bought at auction in Wagon Mound.

[Thom Courcelle]

Cobtastic indeed, Nancy!

It was *NOT* hard to leave the family business at all, David.  I was required to work on Saturdays at the store from the tender age of 7 until I graduated high school—and I hated it. Had to get up at 4:00 in the morning in order to be at the store by 5:00 am. It would take an hour because in winter we had to get dressed and bundled up for the snowy weather, clear the ice and snow off the car in the dark and wait for the car to run long enough to warm up, then drive the twenty minutes to the store.  I had to work both Saturdays AND Sundays during the Fall farmers’ processing season. In retrospect, it was nice to be able to spend time with my Dad, who worked very hard and long hours to support his family…but I was interested in much different things than the family business. There were other family members who could have taken it on if they’d wished…but didn’t. The operation was sold in the 2000s to an outside family who still runs it. 

Cobsmoked ham and bacon is now considered an artisanal New England speciality only done by a few remaining businesses.

[David Stafford]

I'm seeing a food trend....Cob-Smoked Beef....or is that already a thing?

[Nancy Bell Scott]

It's downright cobtastic.

[David Stafford]

This is wonderful lore, Thom. Was it hard to leave the family biz?

[Thom Courcelle]

No, not that one, David... my personal memoir won't be released until all parties involved are deceased (to protect the innocent). Might be awhile... But if it doesn't hit the NYT bestseller list, I'll be shocked.

Actually the story of my grandfather's butcherie—which both my uncle and father took over—has a really interesting history, characterizing small town/village New England life in the first half of the 20th. Almost one-half of the building was constructed as a huge walk-in freezer with locker bins...because there was no such thing as personal household refrigerators or freezers back then... People only had small ice boxes (that were filled once a week by the ice delivery man). So when farmers had their farm animals processed, they would store the meat in the butcherie lockers—which were rented—and simply come and retrieve what they needed from their rented locker when they needed it.

The other half of the building was dedicated to salt-curing and a meat smoking facility. They used corncobs to smoke the meat!

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Ok, we've got pictures of 2 of the 3 Scott family favorites: Spam and Dinty Moore Beef Stew. Just the fishsticks are missing. But Thom's nightmarish growing-up cuisine makes everything I ever ate sound like the Queen's fanciest best super-dinner, served every night. Wow, Thom! 

[David Stafford]

Wow....cool back story....So are we correct in assuming that The Headcheese Butcher's Nephew, that staple bestseller of book groups across the nation, is based on your upbringing?