I repeat before continuing on with reading my post this evening I would like to warn you if you are vegetarian or just super sensitive to meat do not read on.
On the contrary if you are willing to go to the extremes and interested in different and new cuts of meat I beg you to continue reading as I can assure you it will be quite an adventure. This Sunday I went to the Farmers market with a good friend to pick up some lovely local produce. After picking up some cheese, turnip, parsnips, and butternut squash we headed to the door. On our way I steered us in the direction of a local butcher shop to see what they had in store. Now was I ever excited to see a Pig heads staring back at me from the display case. Now now my friends and fellow readers do not be alarmed. There is nothing wrong with a good ol' fashioned pigs head and this I will prove!
a) They cost $4.00 or $2.00 for half a pigs head which is what I bought. If you are being charged more tell them that you understand that you are being ripped off and either walk away or barter them down to $1.50. No one deserves to be ripped off when buying a pigs head. b) They are super cool. A great way to practice your knife skills fatty, interesting and have just enough meat to make cheek bacon, testina, fried ears or some bacon fat chips to say a few fun pigs head recipes.
c) Talk about a cooking adventure!!!
Now there is not much I wanted to do with the snout so I decided to concentrate on utilizing the jaw, back of head and cheek (which means I cut around the ear) If you wanted to use the ear you could cut it off, boil for a heck of a long time and then fry. This would make a very crunchy and tasty pigs ear chip for your chewing pleasure.
Now I had a goal in mind. This was to recreate a dish called Testina which I cooked and ate quite a bit while living in Italy. The process is to take the pigs head, remove the meat and fat from the front jaw, cheek and back of head following along the line of the ear. 
Once you have done that you are going to butterfly the meat. (This means to cut down the thickness of the meat but slicing it in half 90% of the way) This way the meat and skin ratios will be even.
Now from here the meat and fat need to cure for a solid day. This is going to begin the cooking process as I used a salt/sugar ratio to begin bringing out some of the water out from the meat. I used course salt at a rations of 5:1 (salt to sugar) the sugar was just there to cut the intensity of the salt. I then took fresh garlic, crushed peppercors, rosemary and thyme and nicely massaged these into the pig meat, fat and skin. 
I then wrapped it very tightly and let the whole head cure for a total of 18 hours. From there I washed off the garlic, herbs and peppercorns, patted the meat dry, tied it tightly with butchers twine into a roll and then poached it for 10 hours. The slow poaching for such a length of time breaks down the meat, fat and skin allowing each element to cook together. It also poaches the meat immersed in it's own fat so the whole roll stays extremely moist. After 10 hours I removed it from the cooking liquid and saran wrapped it again very tightly. You have to press it for a second time after cooking so that the fat, meat, and skin can once again congeal. I am not lying when I say that this process is actually so cool and interesting. You see all three elements of the head take many different shapes throughout. I then let my my saran wrapped meat sit for at least another 10 hours. At this time It has turned pretty much into a log of fat wrapped around meat. But the most tasty, devine, smooth fat wrapped meat you will even taste as the skin just melts into the fat at and secures itself tightly around the meat. To serve you heat a pan at really high heat and then cut off a 1/2 inch log from the round of testina. You then sear the testina quickly on both sides and serve. It is amazing!!!! I will take many photo's of the cooking tomorrow and write a recipe to go with the final plating. For now I just had to share in the actual adventure on how to get to the point of eating it.
Quite possibly the best time in the kitchen I 've had in a while. Making this reminded me of the past and just how adventurous eating and drinking can be. Check in tomorrow for a full scale view of what "Testina" looks like when it's all said and done.. and a recipe of course that will only add to the experience.
Eat, drink and enjoy!!!
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