If you haven’t heard of livermush, then you’re not from North Carolina. About the only place you can buy livermush is in North Carolina, unless you make it yourself. Generally it’s trucked fresh, so the distribution area typically includes North Carolina, southern South Carolina and northern Virginia.

What is Livermush?

Livermush which may be spelled with a space (liver mush), is somewhat like sausage or scrapple. It’s ground pig parts and packed in one pound blocks and wrapped in a waxed type paper. Livermush, however, includes at least 30% pig liver by law and has cornmeal for a binding. Flavor is usually added by cooking the liver along with fatty pig parts like the snout or neck bones, and seasonings like pepper and sage are generally added.

A close cousin to livermush is liver pudding. The main difference is that liver pudding is made east of the Yadkin River while livermush is west of the divide. Liver pudding does not have cornmeal for binding, so it does not have the same slightly gritty flavor and does not hold together as well for frying.