Offals, Innards and the Unusual
Offals don’t get the respect, in and out of the restaurant community, that they deserve. This is an injustice that MUST BE corrected.
Let’s start with a few definitions so that we are all on the same page. According to Offal Good, chef Chris Cosentino’s educational and inspirational website for those who are interested in learning and cooking with offals:
OFFAL those parts of a meat animal which are used as food but which are not skeletal muscle. The term literally means “off fall”, or the pieces which fall from a carcase when it is butchered. Originally the word applied principally to the entrails. It now covers insides including the HEART, LIVER, and LUNGS (collectively known as the pluck), all abdominal organs and extremities: TAILS, FEET, and HEAD including BRAINS and TONGUE. In the USA the expressions “organ meats”, “giblets” or “variety meats” are used instead.
Bibliography: Davidson, Alan. The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press, 1999. pp. 548-49
A few years ago I participated in an annual culinary event (I have preformed demos, signed my cookbook or cooked in five out six) that brings together ranchers, farmers, chefs, vintners and consumers who want to learn more about game cooking and sustainability. That year, Fergus Henderson, chef and co-owner of St. John Bar and Restaurant in London and author of The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating and Beyond Nose to Tail was the special guest. Wine was flowing; game was roasting, poaching and sautéing; offals were stewing; and intellectual discussions were a-happening.
Offals are not only tasty, when prepared and cooked properly, but “nose-to-tail” eating is one of the integral tenants of sustainability. In The Whole Beast, Fergus says “it would be disingenuous to the animal not to make the most of the whole beast…” It would also be disingenuous to the people raising those animals. That is the essence of sustainability. As with many components of green cuisine, we need to look both to our past and to our culinary brethren around the world. Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America (to name just a few) all have rich histories of using everything that an animal gives us. Look to both the culinary elitists and to bourgeois cuisine. Call it frugality or call it flavor - I just call it tasty.
I continually read from chefs, food writers and critics how “anyone can grill a chop but it takes a chef to do a top-notch braise.” I’ve been told by an overrated, over-hyped, egotistical local chef, “It’s up to us [as chefs] and it’s our job to show the consumer what can be done with the off cuts. It’s a top down kind-of-thing.” Cue spit take. Give me a break people. The key to the slow food movement is bottom up. It’s not a chef or restaurant “thing” but a grassroots “thing”, reconnecting people with their food. Sustainability needs to be a consumer-driven movement. It’s a change of mindset on both the consumer part and the producers part. We need to see more offals at the farmer’s markets, in the meat cases and god-for-bid on the Food Network. (Has Bob Tuschman, Food Network’s senior vice president for programming and production, seen the ratings for Andrew Zimmern’s Travel Channel show Bizarre Foods?)
One last piece of advice that Fergus (and I) want to pass along to you-both the seasoned professional or the ranked amateur:
Don’t be afraid of cooking, as your ingredients will know and misbehave. Enjoy cooking and the food will behave; moreover, it will pass your pleasure on to those who eat.
You’ve got to love a guy who extols the virtues of curly parsley, tells you to leave the poor fava bean alone - “don’t peel them, just pick them at the right time” - and rightfully describes pig’s trotters as bringing an “unctuous, lip-sticking quality” to any dish they inhabit.
By the way, the best braise I ever had was Tripe à la Provencal, by a “home cook” in France of all things.
image credit: Addictive Picasso
More on sustainable eating from GO:
Halal: The Original Ethical Meat Eating?
Think Spring, Think Local
What is Sustainable Cuisine? - Part Two
What is Sustainable Cuisine? - Part One
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