Thursday, February 10, 2011

cooking and eating of odd things

I’m disappointed I don’t want to cook our beef tongue. I just can’t do it. My dear husband loves tongue sandwiches. He tells me of a place down the street from his work that apparently has the best smoked beef tongue sandwiches on earth. He cannot believe I won’t try it. (I've never even seen them, so I don't even know what they look like.)


I eat all kinds of things. I’m a huge fan of sushi. I’ve eaten escargot more than 3 times. I’ve cooked weird octopus/squid seafood chowders (oh God the smell is bad). I love raw oysters. I’ve had alligator, buffalo and elk; Yum, Yum and Yum. I tried frog legs and squirrel; despite what my husband says neither tastes ‘similar to chicken’. (yuk)

As you can tell I’m not afraid to try things. But this beef tongue thing gives me the hebbie-jebbies. He didn’t understand when I tried to explain about feeling the texture of tongue on my tongue. He says the smoked ones he eats are sooo soft. Um, my tongue is soft too. Yuk! I’m curious but I just have reservations. I think I have it wound up in my head that biting a tongue is going to be thick and moist and fleshy and soft –like biting my own.

Maybe it's like placenta. Did you know you can eat placenta? Maybe that's TMI for this blog. Or is it..humm?

We have a beef tongue in our freezer from our cow amoung other things. I’ve never tried liver and onions so maybe I need to fry that up first. Ease my way into the tongue. We also have ox tail. And I was all jazzed about making ox tail soup when it went in our freezer a year ago but now I have my reservations. Again my imagination is running away with me…I picture this hairy piece of tail that I’m going to cook down into a sweaty broth of a soup. Aren’t imaginations fun?

I tried the turkey’s heart at thanksgiving. There’s a reason kids fight over the wishbone, wishbones are fun. Turkey hearts and giblets are pasty and gross. :)

5 comments:

Sarah Head said...

Ox-tongue is a delicacy and easy to cook. It eventually looks nothing at all like a tongue. You need to cook it in water for a couple of hours with bay leaves and peppercorns, then turn it out into a round bowl and press under a heavy weight for a day. Check Mrs Beeton for a full proof recipe. Ox-tail does not look anything like a tail, you only have the bones with the meat attached. Again you need to cook for several hours then take the meat off the bones before adding other veg. Cook with some slugs of port for an incredibly rich and delicious soup.

MrsKnight said...

I tried liver recently because I know it's super healthy.... but, it's definately not a taste I'm accustomed to. FYI, there's a reason Liver and Onions is the common duo. You NEED a powerful onion flavor to smother the liver. So when you try it make a heavy brown gravy and cook up a pile of onions!

I wonder what tongue tastes like? Is it a meaty flavor or an organ flavor? Hmm. I've never even considered buying tongue. If I had my own cattle I'd certainly not want any part to go to waste, but I didn't grow up with these flavors so it would take some effort I'm sure to acquire a taste.

Anonymous said...

I'm right there with you on the beef tongue, and I have even eaten it before....as a kid and my Mom cooked it.
I however, I not up to cooking and - gak! skinning gak again! the thing. The thought of doing that especially the skinning makes my skin crawl.
I will be donating the beef tongue in our freezer to Nancy.

tansy said...

never had tongue but bacon wrapped liver is delicious and kids LOVE it! i generally cut it into quarter sized chunks, brown it with some oil, salt and pepper, half cook the bacon then wrap the pieces of liver in slices of bacon, hold together with a toothpick and broil for about 4 minutes on each side. yum!!

also, pate is delicious and i love it better than bacon wrapped liver. saute the liver, cut into tiny cubes and set aside. dice a bell pepper, red onion and about 3 cloves of garlic and saute until cooked through. add to liver and mix together. cube 2 hard boiled eggs and add to the mix.

serve with rice. or, omit the hard boiled eggs and add to scrambled eggs.

we just had this for dinner 2 nights ago and the kids fought over the last pieces of bacon. we also bacon wrapped the heart. we were cooking chicken hearts and livers but beef hearts and livers taste very similar.

Beth said...

I wouldn't eat cow tongue either. ;-)

I nominated you for the Stylish Blogger Award! I love your blog so much, actually your whole life. ;-) You can get the award over here (if you have time for such internet games!)
http://mamainthequietcorner.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/stylish-blogger-award-from-sally-at-fairy-dust-teaching/

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