Maybe that’s how bellies, cheeks, cockscombs, spleens, and intestines came to be on American menus. But many attribute the serious culinary use of these ingredients to Fergus Henderson, the renowned British chef who started the restaurant St. John in 1995 and whose book, The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating, pays homage to parts once considered waste. Applauded by other chefs for boldly using what they wouldn’t, it returns to a classical cooking style. In the introduction to the book, chef Anthony Bourdain writes that “If the Whole Beast makes a statement, it’s that nearly every part of nearly everything we eat, in the hands of a patient and talented cook, can be delicious—something most good cooks and most French and Italian mothers have known for centuries.”
In other words, what distinguishes a good chef from a great is his or her’s ability to use something that without a tender touch, might be inedible.
It’s also a distinct departure from our profligate past—something that goes over well in the down economy. Parts like heart, kidneys, liver, and pork belly have been the favorite of the penny-pinching chef, even if they are now in vogue.
Head, Shoulder, Knees, and Toes
And far from being reserved to high-end restaurants, the prevalence of animal parts—especially pig—is available to all. In Los Angeles, the two men on the now discontinued show “Two Dudes Catering” started Animal, where pig reigns supreme. On a 2009 sample menu you can get pig ear, chili, lime, and fried egg appetizer for ten dollars or pork belly with kimchi, peanuts, chili soy, and scallions for twelve.
At the paired down menu at DFF in NYC, oxtail soup with orange glaze goes for ten dollars. And at Chez Spencer, a French mobile food truck in San Francisco, you can get escargot lollipops for two dollars or a sweetbread with mushroom dish served in a red and white county fair-style paper carton for eleven dollars.
Of course, these relatively recent introductions of offal don’t compare to the ethnic food offerings that abound in any city. Anyone that’s been to a taqueria in the Fruitvale district in Oakland, California knows that lengua (tongue), cabeza (head), and tripe have been on the menu as long as the joints been open. And an old roommate of mine, who shopped at Asian markets, used to eat beef tendon and knuckles on a regular occurrence.
A Gut Feeling
The more obscure food parts aren’t the only meat cuts coming back; cheaper underappreciated cuts, like flank steak and skirt steak, are also being recognized as economical yet flavorful, if you know how to cook them. There are also the parts of the animal you won’t find on a menu, but are well known as good eats by those willing to try. For instance, chain meat, the fatty flesh cut off beef tenderloin, isn’t served on menus, but can be used in tacos, or as a cheesesteak. The Pope’s nose, the “last part of the poultry to make it over the fence” is a grizzly, fatty, piece of deliciousness that dangles from a fowl’s rear end that my father routinely eats while cutting up the Thanksgiving bird.
Perhaps like sushi, which was once considered weird food, feet, intestines, organs, and the like will become mainstream. A friend of mine in the catering business likes to quote a chef she works with: “The closer you get to the anus, the better the meat tastes.”
Which leads me to wonder: just what will they be serving up next?
(CC) Photos courtesy of - Main: Goosmurf, feet: Ultrastar175g, ears: Sydney, heart: Le Jhe, head: DistractedMind, intestines: suanie.
