Why don't people eat more hog maw?
Andy Little, Nashville
Some questions are so profound and so pithy that it almost does them a disservice to answer them. This is one, but I will do my best. The "hog maw" to which Andy, one of the country's best meat chefs, refers to is pork stomach, a thing so gnarly that it's rarely seen even on the pork-centric menus of Southern lardcore restaurants. Only in ethnic Cantonese restaurants do you see it called "hog maw," sadly. American restaurants, wary of grossing out a more uptight customer base, use euphemisms such as "Susquehanna Turkey" or "Pennsylvania Dutch Goose." (Hog maw is an Amish specialty, like its first cousin scrapple.) Whatever its name, almost nobody likes it. It's tough and tasteless, like the chitterlings to which it is attached. In a starved and desperate future, I have no doubt that hog maw will be considered as big a treat as Iberico ham.
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