MARION, N.C. — By 5 a.m. on Monday, employees at Hunter's Liver Mush in Marion are busy cooking dozens of batches.
Sisters Louise Rumfelt and Phyllis Brackett started making livermush when they were children.
What You Need To Know
Livermush is a mixture of ground pork parts, spices and cornmeal
Roy and Gurthie Hunter started Hunter's Liver Mush in 1955 for local customers in Marion
Their children, Louise, Carolyn, Jerry and Phyllis have continued the small business, distributing in a 100-mile radius
The building sits in the same spot their parents, Roy and Gurthie Hunter, made the first batch.
Rumfelt says it started with not wasting any part of the pig.
Her father only sold it to neighbors and local grocers, and their business grew so much that their mother decided to stay home and make the popular breakfast meat full time.
Rumfelt says not all livermush is created equal.
She says Hunter's only uses pork jowls and pork liver, a big difference from other brands.
The pork is cooked, boiled over open flames in deep pots for four hours.
Then it's ground, and a special blend of cornmeal, flour, salts and sage is mixed in.
After it is divided into separate pans, the livermush has to cool overnight.
It's not until the next morning that the batches are taken out of the cooler, sliced, weighed and packaged.
“We sell over a million pounds a year, and that's all we make," Brackett said.
They keep the business small, only distributing within a 100-mile radius of Marion.