You Can’t Make a Silk Purse…

Posted by zeno on September 25, 2008

Says who?

Whilst I may accept that creating soft and stylish handbags from pigs ears may be a bit of a stretch (literally?), there are so many other things we can do with them.

Food for example.

Forgotten delicacies like “Crisped Ear with Mustard”, lost in the mists of time, that we really should try again; especially now that we are all flat broke and can no longer afford the foie gras or the Kobe beef.

My grandfather was a cattleman. He owned a farm, a slaughterhouse and a butcher shop, so he did all the lovely things to herbivores that the vegetarian belt object to. Sadly I never knew him but my mother (bless her) was awfully fond of bringing various bits of dead animal into the house when I was growing up. Kidneys and liver were common (though she cooked the liver so long it was more like shoe leather) as were thngs like tongue, oxtails and sweetbreads. I recall one day, arriving home from school and finding a calf’s brain floating in a pyrex bowl on the kitchen counter. I gave that one a miss.

But our palates have become accustomed to choicer cuts of meat these days. I read somewhere that today’s eating habits are a direct result of the years of plenty that occurred immediately after rationing stopped, back in the ’50s. After such straightened times, our parents got mad and decided to no longer eat like peasants. I think that is a real shame. Being a peasant and all.

I reckon that most people don’t have the foggiest which part of a sheep/cow/pig the various cuts of come from. In fact, in these days of supermarket fluorescence we don’t ever get to see the blood and gore, so many people can mentally separate the meat they eat from the donating animal and thus kid themselves on that they are two different things. Unfortunately, as a result, we don’t get much opportunity to be adventurous with our tastebuds.

My local butcher is BRILLIANT so I have been doing my thang with sweetbreads, kidney and lambs hearts over the past few months. Much to the disgust of my family but much to the delight of MacGregor, my curmudgeonly neighbour.

I bought a book recently called Nose to Tail Eating, by Fergus Henderson (Chef at St John restaurant, in London, which specialises in “interesting dishes”). There are recipes for things like “Warm Pigs Head”, “Jellied Rabbit”, “Grilled, Marinated Calf’s Heart” and all sorts of fabby stuff. I am not as hardcore as I would have to be to eat “Rolled Pig’s Sleen” but I am all for trying out less bizarre items. SO, today I bought a bag of pig parts (ears, feet and cheeks) and I am going to spend the weekend indulging and experimenting.

I’ll keep you posted and let you see the results in picture. If it were possible to post smells, I would but am sure you will be drooling anyway.

Any of you have old recipes you think I may enjoy?