Author Topic: Chitterlings.., tripe , offal and such stuff. What do /did you eat?  (Read 23963 times)

Jeannine

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Has anyone ever cooked chitterlings  from raw. I remember eating them as a kid and find I can buy them raw here but the contamination risks scare me a bit. I have read cleaning and cooking methods on the net and it is very worrying...

I can also buy them cooked in an oriental supermarket but suspect they may be seasoned very different to the old UK ones.

And talking of such things I took a closer look at tripe today and was amazed to find it was more expensive than pork chops , now there's a twist.

I think I mentioned this once before so forgive me if I am repeating myself but a walk through the butchers department in this store is amazing.. pigs trotters,tails, noses, chitterlins,skin and  uterus. Chicken feet,liver,gizzards, hearts and heads. Fish heads, fish  liver, tails,bones,and the soft stuff from in their heads sold seperately..

In the  hot food  department they have pig skin cooked soft in a sauce and also crackling, and most of the above pig and chicken bits cooked .
 
Plus the most amazing things still swimming in tanks. I buy a different fish each time I go in, today I bought Char.

Of course I don't tell John, he thinks it is all  either cod , salmon or halibut!!

I keep threateniong to buy conch or abalone but  I know it is endangered in some parts of the world.

I bought a haggis a couple of weeks ago, the real thing too. The last time I was in the UK I bought one and it was very different, I was told by the butcher that they are not allowed to use certain things anymore since joining the European thing..

I remember my mother cooking lights (lungs ) years ago but can't remember actually eating them  in a piece,I think she minced them  with other things and made faggotts  with them though.

We must have eaten some pretty weird stuff war and post war I guess.

What do you remember eating  or still eat that is a bit different.

XX Jeannine

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peanuts

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Jeannine, all those things you mention are readily available here in SW France, both in the supermarkets, and also direct from the local abbatoir. I think the equivalent here of chitterlings is andouille - the stomach lining of the pig, cut in long strips, made into long bunched up lines, and then threaded through a section of the intestine, making a long sausage.  We have watched friends making these in the old way, in their open garage one very very cold January day!  They are then dipped in a bowl of black pepper, and suspended in the garage for several months to dry, then boiled, at which point they can be eaten or frozen, cut in very thin slices.  It is just delicious!  They are widely available commercially, but the real way of doing them at home takes a lot of beating in flavour.  Just an amazing amount of hard work.

One particular memory for me is tiger nuts.  I used to love them.  But when I came across them 10 years ago I couldn't see what I'd so loved about them any more!

Squash64

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....but a walk through the butchers department in this store is amazing.. pigs trotters,tails, noses, chitterlins,skin and  uterus. Chicken feet,liver,gizzards, hearts and heads. Fish heads, fish  liver, tails,bones,and the soft stuff from in their heads sold seperately..

In the  hot food  department they have pig skin cooked soft in a sauce and also crackling, and most of the above pig and chicken bits cooked .
 

Sorry Jeannine, but this sounds like a scene from a horror film to me!  :o
Betty
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goodlife

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Oh dear..cannot confess any of those 'delicacies'. In fact..older I get more squeamish I become with any animal products. It really hit me hard this year when I visited Grow your own food show..I was having such a fun when looking and stroking the pigs, goats and sheep that even the idea of eating those gorgeous animals put me off from the delicious sausages sold there. I could easily turn into veggie if only my body would agree..little bit of meat does good for it.
When I go to Finland my yearly home visit..I always eat these small fish, about size of thumb, that are fished from lakes. They are cooked whole with heads and inner bits still on too and they are eaten whole.
That is as 'weird' as my diet goes...oh,yes..cod roe..I eat that too...and gravlax, not only made with salmon but few other species too(admittedly not my favourite, but I eat if its offered).

grawrc

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Yes like Goodlife I don't really go much for eating animals. When I do it's mostly chicken (organic, free range - so not often!!) or fish.

I have an app called "good fish guide" which traffic lights which fish you should eat - so for example pacific halibut and farmed Atlantic halibut are green (OK to eat) but wild Atlantic and Greenland halibut are red (don't eat). The red ones are normally red because of depleted stocks.


saddad

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I have no problem with mainstream offal... heart, liver, kidney, have ventured as far as tripe. Will eat black pudding willingly and anything else that gets minced and spiced aka faggots. Not sure I could face lights or brains directly...  :-X

Yes Tongue too...  :)
« Last Edit: May 22, 2012, 11:21:29 by saddad »

galina

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We eat chicken liver and chicken hearts and other liver.  Liver is supposedly full of iron and beneficial to health.  Many people love pate and don't realise that liver is its main ingredient  :)  Heart from larger animals is dense and needs a bit of preparation to cut off all the tough bits.  Haven't cooked it in years.

My mother made ox tongue now and then, slow cooked and utterly delicious with horseradish sauce.  It needed peeling before serving.  We got quantities of lung and cut if up for cat food when I was young, ditto fish heads.  I think fish heads were and still are mainly used for making fish stock, but there is a tasty morsel of flesh in the 'cheeks', sorry don't know the technical term.  

From Switzerland hails a really good recipe for using 'bride's veil' a very thin sheet of fatty material, see-through in places, but now very difficult to buy.  Cut calves'  livers into bite-size chunks, add a leaf of sage  and a small piece of fatty bacon to each and wrap in a piece of bride's veil.  Place 5 of these parcels on a skewer and fry.  All the recipes I found on google nowadays modify this recipe and wrap the liver in a whole slice of bacon, presumably because bride's veil is no longer available in butchers.  Here Zuercher Leberspissli is made with chicken liver, but the picture shows the dish nicely.

http://www.kochbar.de/rezept/169989/Zuercher-Leberspiessli-aus-Huehnerleber.html

As most of us are meat eaters we should really try and use every edible bit of an animal out of respect, unless there are health implications, like beef spinal cord and BSE.   Presumably we used to eat all these things not knowing what they were, in sausages and cold cuts.  Heard on the radio that there is now a roaring trade in pig's ears and other pig's parts to China.

Oh just remembered another one from my youth - marrow bone - my mother boiled beef bones to make stock, then the inner was scraped out, salted and eaten on bread - very nice 'elevenses' treat.

PS just found out from Google that 'bride's veil' is also called caul fat.  Under that name there are plenty of entries and pictures, for example this one
http://francesdepontespeebles.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/caulfat.jpg
« Last Edit: May 22, 2012, 11:51:21 by galina »

antipodes

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Yes like Peanuts, here in France we get lots of the "bits and pieces", I cannot stand offal myself having not been brought up to eat it but my husband eats a lot of it. You get the andouille as Peanuts described which is eaten as a cold cut (or in crepes here in Britanny!) but there is also the Andouillette which is a cooked chitterling sausage. OH loves them but the smell as they cook is utterly vile. If we have a BBQ on hols I sometimes get him one, so the smell can stay outside!
They also frequently eat liver, kidneys, tripe in sauce here and one of my workmates had cooked lamb brain chopped up in a salad one lunchtime (to our general horror!). Of course most of the cold cuts have liver in them (pate etc) but i don't mind that. Tongue is also eaten but less frequently than before. It is served hot with a strong tasting sauce. "Ris de veau" is also a delicacy - it's made from veal thymus gland. Don't even know where that is on the carcass!!!!!
So you'd be at home here Jeannine!
2012 - Snow in February, non-stop rain till July. Blight and rot are rife. Thieving voles cause strife. But first runner beans and lots of greens. Follow an English allotment in urban France: http://roos-and-camembert.blogspot.com

Melbourne12

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Now that we don't spend so much time in France, we eat rather less offal than we used to, sad to say.  Mmmm.  Ris de veau. One of my favourite dishes.  And museau (brawn).  Nobody does it like a decent French traiteur.  And the andouillettes (as mentioned by Peanuts & Antipodes) - we liked them cooked in a gratin.  And the little breadcrumbed trotters.  And ... and ... so many nice things.

We've eaten calves' fries (testicles) in the USA.  Not the greatest gourmet delight, but good BBQ food.

Back home, I haven't seen brains on sale in the UK for ages.  I used to do a very nice canneloni stuffed with spinach and brains.

I must admit that I'm not fond of tripe, even done a la mode de Caen.  It's the texture that I don't care for.   And the English presentation of plain boiled tripe and onions, with a bottle of malt vinegar to hand, is one of the ghastliest concoctions known to man.  (Cue someone jumping to the defence of the noble dish!)

We've cooked lights years ago, when we made our own haggis.  I wouldn't bother again.

Edit:  How could I have forgotten gesiers (gizzards)?  Fabulous served warm with a salad on a summer evening.
« Last Edit: May 22, 2012, 13:55:49 by Melbourne12 »

Pescador

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Sounds fantastic Jeannine!! I must come and visit.
The only part of a pig I haven't eaten is the "oink"!!
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goodlife

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Oh yes..something else I just remembered.. ;D Blood crepes...just like normal pancakes but instead of milk, its made into blood. Bloody lovely.. ;D and eaten with lingonberry jam. Unfortunately not something you get in this country but again..everyday stuff in Finland.

shirlton

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We hardly eat any meat now. Chicken and Fish and we don't eat that much anymore. I would sooner have a plate of fresh veg.
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BarriedaleNick

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I grew up with roasted  pigs head, brawn and the like but never much tripe, heart or lungs.
Had some gizzards last year done by some Portuguese friends - now they were nice.

These days it's mainly liver and kidneys both of which are superb on a BBQ...
Now if I had my own pigs I'd eat every bit!!
Moved to Portugal - ain't going back!

Jeannine

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Ah some sturdy gourmets out there.

I often do cook beef tongue, sometimes just plain boiled ot sometimes I pickle it. I used to like what were called sweetbreads which were the thymus etc, and I have to admit I have cooked pigs testicles. I cooked them rather the same way as cooking small kidneys.

We were living on a pig farm and the vet came to castrate half a dozen litters of babies. We had a farmworker who shared our dinners but he grabbed everything he could as quick as he could when he sat down, sometimes robbing others, so I cooked the dish full of testicles, and sure enough he tucked right in, no one else took any so he ate the lot. I hadn't even finished putting the food on the tabe as we said they were starters.We never did tell him but we enjoyed our pork chops that day as they didn't fly off the plate as he was quite full of them.

I do like home made brawn but it is years since I got my hands on a pigs head..should try to get one.

I remember my mother soaking brains in milk before she cooked them and they were pretty good.

Nothing would get me to eat a pigs nose though, or the other bit they sell here, the bum hole.

I think I might go to the Scottiesh butcher today and see if I can fins some black pudding, it is not available anywhere else, and maybe some mealie puddings for John.

XX Jeannine
When God blesses you with a multitude of seeds double  the blessing by sharing your  seeds with other folks.

ACE

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One of my songs down at the folk club

Chorus: Chitterlin', chitterlin', chitterlin'; chitterlin' is all I crave,
Fill I up with chitterlin', and think of all the cash you'll save;
You can do Irish stew or Cordon Bleu,
Stuff it where you stuff your fancy suits,
You can buy it soft or hard, by the pound or by the yard,
Chitterlin's the stuff to give the troops!


Now back in Queen Victoria's time, they held a grand affair
A real Royal spree, at the Russian Embassy
Old Albert and Victoria , they went there for the ride
Thinking it a change from toast for tea
Her Majesty was not amused, when right in front the Czar
Old Albert coughed, and his false teeth shot out
And as they fell into a bucket full of caviar,
The Royal Consort he began to shout :

Repeat Chorus


Now when William Shakespeare wrote his famous "Taming of the Shrew"
He couldn't sleep at night, stayed awake by candlelight
He broke his pen, and burnt the midnight oil to no avail,
'Cos nowt could save him from his sorry plight
When suddenly a knock was heard, as he went to retire
It was his sweetheart Annie Hathaway
She said "Oh Will, I've come to give you all that you desire,"
His eyes lit up and he began to say :

Repeat Chorus


On the fifth day of November back in sixteen hundred and five,
A stealthy figure went, to the 'Ouses of Parliament
And beneath his cloak he carried a girt barrel in his hand
It was Guy Fawkes that night on mischief bent.
A soldier of the Royal Guard said "Hullo, what's this yere,"
A'spyin' out the cask beneath his cloak
"Pray tell I, Sir, what's in that cask, I'm sure it can't be Scrump,"
Old Guy took off 'is hat, and softly spoke :

Repeat Chorus (twice)


davyw1

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I don't think there is much i have not eaten can i add to the list Monkey, bear, snake and porcupine
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BarriedaleNick

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Crocodile is quite nice and it sure beats the pig gut stew i had in Thailand which still had a whiff of the "farmyard" about it..
Moved to Portugal - ain't going back!

katynewbie

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I am ok with liver, but not tongue or brawn, I think it's true that we eat with our eyes first, and they don't look very inviting! In Borneo recently I was given something to eat which looked like intestines, I did try, really I did, but only managed a tiny bit. As we left the restaurant I realised that all the locals were adding huge quantities of ketchup and HP sauce to make it palatable...

galina

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Oh yes..something else I just remembered.. ;D Blood crepes...just like normal pancakes but instead of milk, its made into blood. Bloody lovely.. ;D and eaten with lingonberry jam. Unfortunately not something you get in this country but again..everyday stuff in Finland.

had a look on google images because I really could not picture blood crepes.  They look scary - like black pudding (which I suppose makes sense given their ingredients).  ;D

Squash64

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Oh yes..something else I just remembered.. ;D Blood crepes...just like normal pancakes but instead of milk, its made into blood. Bloody lovely.. ;D and eaten with lingonberry jam. Unfortunately not something you get in this country but again..everyday stuff in Finland.

Oh dear, I think I'll stop reading this thread now.  Just the thought of eating blood pancakes is making me gag.
Betty
Walsall Road Allotments
Birmingham



allotment website:-
www.growit.btck.co.uk

 

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