OFFAL. Animal innerds such as lungs, hearts, livers, kidneys and intestines.
EXTREMITIES. Animal parts you most likely don’t eat such as heads, tongues, brains, tails & feet.

Hence the question: Offal Good or Awful Bad?

The other day while perusing my local “ghetto Ralph’s” grocery store (if you live in Venice you know where I’m talking about) I saw something I hadn’t noticed before. Jarred pigs trotters. I’ve seen the regular trotters in the meat section before but not this pickled variety. I wonder how long these jars keep for? Does anyone really eat this stuff? Then I had a flashback to my yout.

Growing up in Ireland in the 70’s times were tough as our economy wasn’t the may west. If there was ever one thing the Irish learned to do well it was cooking hearty meals on the cheap, after all that’s where Irish stew came from. Surviving on the Island meant utilizing every bit of what you had. This meant utilizing our national animal to its fullest (that part I just made up). Not surprising then that I’ve eaten a variety of animal innerds, such as livers and kidneys. Even had my crack at ox-tail and cow’s tongue. These were cheap parts of meat that brought tons of flavour to stews, pies and puddings. Ever heard of beef and kidney pie? Haggis? (Scottish I know but you get the point). That recipe has it all–sheep’s paunch, or stomach bag, and sheep’s pluck, the heart, liver and lights. (Lights?) In other words, not the stuff you’d be buying generally or….ever. Taking a gander at my Mum’s Mum’s cookbooks dating from the 20-50’s there are several recipes using offal: Calf’s brain fritters, sweetbreads, liver and bacon, stewed ox-tail, Fricassee of tripe, cow heel jelly, and those are just a few of ‘em. Seems the Irish were way ahead of their time in sustainable eating. Who knew?!

Now I don’t know what it was like in the States back then, if offal was as abundant as it was across the pond, but according to my Missus the only thing she was raised around was Menudo, a Mexican soup made with tripe and/or cow’s feet. I’m actually quite curious about what type of offal Americans ate growing up, if any. I know that my clients are not requesting offal, though my specialty is healthy food so my proteins don’t consist of major excitement I’m afraid, apart from the way I cook them of course. Perhaps eating offal is saved for a night out at a new restaurant where bone marrow and mason jarred pates run aplenty. They seem to be all over the shop these days. Sweetbreads have always been around in the posh expensive restaurants but now they seem to be more accessible than ever. Have you noticed the offal comeback? Just yesterday I received an email about Offal Good @ Palate in Glendale, a local restaurant offering offal every Wednesday night and truth be told I did have a tasteen of bone marrow not too long ago at Cache. Nearly everyone at the table had a crack at it and we were all in hog heaven. Perhaps America does like something offal.

Let’s just hope the prices don’t skyrocket now because it’s trendy. After all, these are the cheapest parts of the animal. Anywho the question I have for you is simply this,

Offal good or bloody offal bad?

To me, March should be dedicated to the Irish. The start of the month is about the countdown to St. Paddy’s Day, then there’s the big day itself and afterward its about recovering from all the festivities. An entire month just for us wild & crazy Paddies. But this year, St. Patrick’s Day is not only Ireland’s National Holiday its also the day the All-Ireland Club Finals (the Gaelic football and hurling senior club championships) are being played. For some this will be the highlight of their sporting year. The fact that it’s the 125th year anniversary of the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) is just an added bonus making the celebrations more meaningful. Talk about March Madness! Don’t fancy that headache the next morning!

Sticking to tradition of the countdown, I thought I’d highlight an article I saw when I was home last from the Sunday Tribune magazine aptly titled, Food That Only The Irish Eat (Apparently). Thank you Derek O’Conner for such an enlightening & amusing read. Read on to see O’Conner’s take as he explores the nation’s dining habits to find the food that only “we” can stomach. Not so much me in that we, though it seems we Irish do eat more than potatoes & cabbage, lamb & Guinness. But spiceburgers and boxty? I’m asking my fellow Irishmen here–am I the only one who has never eaten those?

Coddle

CODDLE
Coddle – Ah Jaysus! C’mere and give us a coddle, love! Namechecked by Jonathan Swift and Sean O’Casey as their favourite dish, coddle couldn’t be more synonymous with the nation’s capital; the fact that Dubliners have rejected it in favour of kebabs and takeaway pizza is a searing indictment of their moral and spiritual decay. That said, coddle ain’t for sissies, consisting as it does of a pungent melée of bacon produce swimming in a swamp of spuds ‘n’ onions; its origins date back to Famine times, when anything to hand, save your nearest and dearest, got thrown into the pot. It’s the fuel of the proletariat, the lifeblood of the common man – and a heart attack in a bowl. Less a meal than a veritable Proustian dining reverie, there’s eating AND drinking to be had in a bowl of coddle, especially if – as recommended – you flavour it with an auld drop or two of Guinness.

Spiceburgers

SPICEBURGERS
As a naïve young vegetarian, the author once had an extended and sincere conversation with a local chip shop owner, whereupon he was assured, beyond a doubt, that there was no meat whatsoever in spiceburgers; thusly, he spent his formative years unwittingly betraying everything that his idol Morrissey believed in. Ah, well. We bet Morrissey eats them, too. If Meat Is Murder, then a spiceburger is a slow, pleasurable death, an exotic, enigmatic creation revered and reviled in equal quantities by hardcore takeaway connoisseurs. What is a spiceburger? It’s a pivotal question that has already provoked spurious debate on the interweb, offering little by way of concrete conclusion. Even the people who make them don’t know what’s in them. These two simple things we hold as self-evident truths: (a) shop-bought spiceburgers never, ever taste as good as ones from the chipper. As WB Yeats once said, there’s nothing quite as tragic as a soggy spiceburger. No, wait, it was our Dad that said that. And (b) you can’t get spiceburgers in Donegal. We’ve tried. NB: Don’t attempt a spiceburger without a scoop of chips. Seriously. Really.

Red Lemonade

RED LEMONADE
Lemonade you can get anywhere in the world, but red lemonade….Now that’s a different kettle of coddle altogether. One of the many great mysteries surrounding Irish culture is how and when we decided, en masse, to refer to the most artificial beverages imaginable as ‘minerals’ – as in “and a mineral and a packet of Tayto for the little fella, cheers.” Indeed, a long-standing urban myth suggests that the only reason red lemonade is only available in this country is due to its innumerable side-effects, which can include rampant giddiness, an ongoing sense of ennui and the ability to talk shite for days on end. This is a lie. Red lemonade is the greatest Irish invention ever, with the possible exception of hurling. Frequently mentioned in top-10 lists of things that Irish ex-pats miss about The Auld Sod, the current government has drawn up plans to convert 50% of Irish motorcars to run on red lemonade within the next decade. Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny is already kicking up a fuss. He’s more of a Cream Soda man, see.

Boxty

BOXTY
Seriously? The only people we know who’ve ever actually eaten boxty were punters at Dublin’s ever-popular Irish theme restaurant Gallagher’s Boxty House, a place where Actual Irish People dine for solely ironic purposes. In essence, boxty is a seriously hardcore starchfest, a potato pancake much loved in and around the border counties – the word boxty is a derivative of ‘bacstai’, referring to the traditional method of grilling the absolute shite out of anything that couldn’t be boiled over an open fire. No matter how much we might try to suggest otherwise, what with our finely-honed Celtic Tiger palettes and everything, the Irish have always been about the spuds, and considering that the country’s going to/gone to hell, and we’re all broke-assed losers again, it’s time to re-embrace the auld práta. Or fata, if you’re from Connemara. A traditional rhyme goes thusly: Boxty on the griddle/Boxty in the pan/If you can’t make boxty/ You’ll never get a man. Truer words never spoken; several female friends of our acquaintance are destined to die alone and unloved, due to their stubborn refusal to master the fine art of boxty making. There’s a band called Boxty, too. They’re from France. Don’t ask. Read the rest of this entry »