General Chat

Hearts

We had them a lot when I was young, probably because they were cheap.
I have noticed they are far more widely available now than even a few years ago but not cheap.

Slow cooked served with a thick gravy and mash....Yum!

Chris

Yep, I have eaten offal! Grandpa was a Slaughterman at the Cally, so the family ate everything but the squeak.

As a child I ate stuffed hearts, liver, kidneys, tongue and tripe.

I also eat jellied eels. Luvverly with a drop of vinegar on them.

:-D :-D :-D

yummy

http://honest-food.net/2014/04/14/fromage-de-tete-recipe/
:-D

We also had roasted stuffed heart when I was younger, normally an Ox heart.

Strangely, we bought lambs' hearts for our dog.

Nice recipe, Rollo.

My daughter thought that I was mad recently (well, madder then usual) when she and her partner were going on a fishing trip.

I asked them to bring back a couple of fish frames complete with heads they made fantastic fish stock, almost a jelly, and there was enough fish flesh left on the heads to feed the cat for a couple of days :-D

We too used to have stuffed roasted ox heart when I was a child - and my children also had it :-D
My parents used to feed boiled 'lights' (lungs) to our cat.

......the cat started going to the harbour when the boats came in and would bring back a fish for us to cook for her.....

Snap, Maggie!

I remember my mother sending me to the butchers to buy cat pluck. It wasn't until I started at the abattoir that I realised it was the lungs :-D :-D

Actually, that video that Rollo posted reminded me of one time I went with my mother to the butchers

She asked for a sheep's head and told the butcher to leave the eyes in as it had to see us through the week :-D :-D

we used to eat lots of offal, including tripe, when I was a child. Mum cooked tripe in vinegar, if I remember correctly ............... I much preferred honeycomb tripe.


Mum bought horse meat occasionally during and just after the war. She also bought rabbit from the fish and game shop in town, and made a lovely stew with it.


OH and I were in Switzerland in 2005, and our hosts took us to a specialty restaurant out in the countryside ................. their specialty was meat kebabs that you cooked yourself over a little burner.

The meat choices were ................ goat, horse and beef.

I had the horse, for old times sake. It was good :-)


Cooking using all parts of the animal is now "high cuisine" here ....... a couple of restaurants have opened, or changed their menus, in the last couple of years to include everything. It's known as "nose to tail" cooking ................ and at least one restaurant was serving pigs head, trotters, sheep's brain and other offal delights.

I haven't heard how well those parts of their menu are selling :-)

My Dad used to like chitterlings - don't know if it's a dish particular to the south-west, but The Wurzels mentioned them in one of their songs, as did Thomas Hardy in one of his novels.

Judging from a pub menu I saw yesterday, I think offal is becoming 'high cuisine' here :-(

Liver, bacon and mash - £7.95!!!

Not only that, when it was taken to the table (we didn't order it), the liver (variety unspecified), with a thick gravy was laid ON the mash.
To be honest, it could be my eyesight, but from a distance, it looked like a turd on a bit of tissue :-S

I remember grandad eating pigs trotters,,,,,,yuuuuuuuk,,glad mum never had a fancy to cook them or give us any of the stuffs on this thread,,,,,,if mum didnt eat/like it, then neither, did she buy it or feed us it.

Maggie


liver and onions, with mashed potatoes and a couple of slices and bacon is easily found in this province ....................


many small cafes, truckers stops, motel cafes etc have always had on their menu ............... we've ordered it on and off ever since we came here in 1968.


I don't think it must have ever left the menu.


OH also makes liver and onions 2 or 3 times a winter ......... the ordinary supermarket has almost always has it for sale, as well as individual butcher shops.



Other offal items are not so easily found in cafes :-)

Ah! Fine food presentation :-D

We frequently have liver, but accompanied not only by mash and onion gravy but also by those suspicious rolls of meat of Indeterminate origin, otherwise known as sausages.

I like my liver (well lamb's liver ;-)) sliced not too thickly, dipped in seasoned flour and fried for no longer that thirty seconds to a minute on either side, depending on the thickness. It still has to be practically raw in the centre......lovely

Speaking of things becoming Haute Cuisine, and consequently more expensive, I was recently in the supermarket looking for a bone for my daughter's dog when I bumped into an ex slaughterman that I used to work with. He was commenting on the cost of certain 'cheap' meat and he said that when he started work things like lamb shanks would be given away free as dog food!

lol Allan

Lamb shanks...... used to get them for less than $2 each......... and have been asked by checkout operators if they were dogs' meat :-D

Then the Yuppies found them.... and they cook them in all sorts of weird & wonderful ways........and they're not $2 each any more.

Never thought I'd see them on a restaurant menu.

And......... I'm sure the shanks have shrunk! :-S

Totally agree, Scozz with both size and pricing

The minute a cheap cut of meat appears on Reality TV show such as MKR, the price soars.

I do watch MKR and in a very recent episode one couple was cooking pork cheeks (which I would normally associate with brawn). First butchers they went into they purchased enough cheeks for the entire meal :-0

It took me some time to find one hock :-S