Hog maw is the stomach of a pig prepared as food. More specifically, it is the exterior muscular wall of the stomach organ (with interior, lining mucosa removed) which contains no fat if cleaned properly. It can be found in American, soul food, Chinese, Pennsylvania Dutch, Mexican, Portuguese, Italian and Vietnamese dishes. In addition, it can be prepared in various ways including stewed, fried, baked, and broiled.
Hog maw, sometimes called pig's stomach, Susquehanna turkey or Pennsylvania Dutch goose is a Pennsylvania Dutch dish. In the Pennsylvania German language, it is known as Seimaage [1] (sigh-maw-guh), originating from its German name Saumagen. It is made from a cleaned pig's stomach traditionally stuffed with cubed potatoes and loose pork sausage meat. Other ingredients may include cabbage, onions, and spices. It was traditionally boiled in a large pot covered in water, not unlike Scottish haggis, but it can also be baked or broiled until browned or split, then it is often drizzled with butter, sometimes browned, before serving. It is usually served hot on a platter, cut into slices, and topped with horseradish or stewed tomatoes. It can also be served cold as a sandwich. Often served in the winter, it was made on hog butchering days on the farms of Lancaster and Berks Counties and elsewhere in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country.
It remains a traditional New Year's Day side dish for many Pennsylvania German families; in fact, many families believe that it is bad luck if not even a small piece is consumed on New Year's Day, as is the case with pork and sauerkraut . The stomach is purchased at one of the many traditional butchers at local farmers' markets. The original recipe was most likely brought to Pennsylvania from the Palatinate area of Germany, where it is called Saumagen and served with sauerkraut, another Pennsylvania Dutch food. Indeed, Saumagen is reported to have been a favorite of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a native of the Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz) Region.
As a soul food dish, hog maw has often been coupled with chitterlings, which are pig intestines. In the book Plantation Row Slave Cabin Cooking: The Roots of Soul Food hog maw is used in the Hog Maw Salad recipe. [2]
Hog maw is also traditionally prepared for New Year's Day for prosperity along with other traditional Southern New Year's Day dishes like collard greens and Hoppin' John.
In Chinese cuisine, hog maw is called 猪肚 (zhūdǔ, "pig stomach") often served stir fried with vegetables. It can also be braised, chilled, and sliced as part of a cold cut tray.
Hog maws (called "buche") are a specialty in taco stands all over Mexico, mostly deep fried with the rest of the pork.
In Puerto Rico, hog maws are called Cuajos. Cuajitos is a popular street vendor food found around the island and is most often served with boiled green banana escabeche and morcilla (blood sausage).
Cajun cuisine is a style of cooking developed by the Cajun–Acadians who were deported from Acadia to Louisiana during the 18th century and who incorporated West African, French and Spanish cooking techniques into their original cuisine.
Tripe is a type of edible lining from the stomachs of various farm animals. Most tripe is from cattle, pigs and sheep.
A blood sausage is a sausage filled with blood that is cooked or dried and mixed with a filler until it is thick enough to solidify when cooled. Most commonly, the blood of pigs, sheep, lamb, cow, chicken, or goose is used.
Saumagen is a German dish popular in the Palatinate. The dish is similar to a sausage in that it consists of a stuffed casing; however, the stomach itself is integral to the dish. It is not as thin as a typical sausage casing. Rather it is meat-like, being a strong muscular organ, and when the dish is finished by being pan-fried or roasted in the oven, it becomes crisp. The dish is somewhat similar to the Scottish haggis, although the stuffing is quite different.
Scrapple, also known by the Pennsylvania Dutch name Pannhaas, is traditionally a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and wheat flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices. The mush is formed into a semi-solid set loaf, and slices of the scrapple are then pan-fried before serving. Scraps of meat left over from butchering, not used or sold elsewhere, were made into scrapple to avoid waste. Scrapple is primarily eaten in the southern Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.
Offal, also called variety meats, pluck or organ meats, is the internal organs of a butchered animal. The word does not refer to a particular list of edible organs, and these lists of organs vary with culture and region, but usually exclude skeletal muscle. Offal may also refer to the by-products of milled grains, such as corn or wheat.
Chitterlings, sometimes spelled chitlins or chittlins, are the small intestines of domestic animals. They are usually made from pigs' intestines. They may also be filled with a forcemeat to make sausage. Intestine from other animals, such as beef, lamb, goose, and goat is also used for making chitterling.
A ham hock or pork knuckle is the joint between the tibia/fibula and the metatarsals of the foot of a pig, where the foot was attached to the hog's leg. It is the portion of the leg that is neither part of the ham proper nor the ankle or foot (trotter), but rather the extreme shank end of the leg bone.
Peasant foods are dishes eaten by peasants, made from accessible and inexpensive ingredients.
Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine is the typical and traditional fare of the Pennsylvania Dutch. According to one writer, "If you had to make a short list of regions in the United States where regional food is actually consumed on a daily basis, the land of the Pennsylvania Dutch—in and around Lancaster County, Pennsylvania—would be at or near the top of that list," mainly because the area is a cultural enclave of Pennsylvania Dutch culture.
Pork belly or belly pork is a boneless and fatty cut of meat from the belly of a pig. Pork belly is particularly popular in Filipino, Hispanic, Chinese, Danish, Norwegian, Korean, and Thai cuisine.
Slovak cuisine varies slightly from region to region across Slovakia. It was influenced by the traditional cuisine of its neighbours and it influenced them as well. The origins of traditional Slovak cuisine can be traced to times when the majority of the population lived self-sufficiently in villages, with very limited food imports and exports and with no modern means of food preservation or processing.
Soup beans is a term common in the Southern United States, particularly the regions around the Appalachian Mountains. Soup beans are usually served with cornbread, greens, and potatoes and may be topped with raw chopped onions or ramps. Soup beans are considered a main course, but also serve as a side dish. In rural areas, where food was scarce during the winter, these dried beans were a staple food.
Dirty rice is a traditional Louisiana Creole dish made from white rice which gets a "dirty" color from being cooked with small pieces of pork, beef or chicken, green bell pepper, celery, and onion, and spiced with cayenne and black pepper. Parsley and chopped green onions are common garnishes. Dirty rice is most common in the Creole regions of southern Louisiana; however, it can also be found in other areas of the American South and referenced as "chicken and rice," "Cajun rice," or "rice dressing".
Texan cuisine is the food associated with the Southern U.S. state of Texas, including its native Southwestern cuisine influenced Tex-Mex foods. Texas is a large state, and its cuisine has been influenced by a wide range of cultures, including Tejano/Mexican, Native American, Creole/Cajun, African-American, German, Czech, Southern and other European American groups.
Chaudin, also referred to as ponce or Southern Louisiana Ponce, is a meat dish from southern Louisiana, US,. It is a sausage-like variant made from ingredients sewn up in a pig's stomach. The stuffing includes spices, pork, rice and vegetables including onions and peppers. It can be prepared in a Dutch oven, crock pot, or baked in an oven and is often sold smoked. It is often made with a Holy Trinity Gravy, a roux with brown chopped onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic in water, broth or wine.
The cuisine of the Palatinate region of Germany is essentially determined by regional dishes that have become popular throughout the whole region and even beyond.