Ground Beef Hearts

[S.A.M.]

Your friend is quite possibly right. I am a Mumbaikar which puts me on a slightly different planet than the rest of the country. Getting beef in restaurants is tricky because it excludes clientele, since Hindus who do not eat beef will also not eat food prepared in vessels in which beef has been cooked at any time. However I sincerely doubt that the "mutton" proclaimed on the menus is actually goat meat. I have a good relationship with my butcher and I know that he supplies beef to restaurants.

Most butchers are either Muslims or Christians and all the butchers we know are Muslim. We get our meat from their own cattle which are located on the outskirts of the city. I doubt there is much experimentation with the quality of meat and it is unlikely that they are fed beer or given massages. The meat is very very different from what I have eaten abroad. It has much less smell and a more distinct aroma and flavor. I recall gagging the first time we boiled lamb in Saudi Arabia because it smelled of sweat. Indian cow/buffalo meat is less tender, which is why it is traditionally cooked on low charcoal flames in sealed containers for long periods. It is however more flavorful. Veal can be cut with a fork, but goat meat cannot unless it has been pressure cooked till all the protein is decimated. I prefer a medium well texture myself, so its ideal for me.

 

[Mrs.Lucysnow]

Are those real Kobe-style beef restaurants, for wealthy people? The cattle are fed beer and given daily massages. The meat is really expensive. That stuff costs more than $100 per pound.

There is a fine restaurant in NY that used to serve kobe hamburgers. It was a $50 kobe burger and you couldn't insist on ketchup or anything like that. They had their own special sauce for the dish.

 

[Orleander]

...Are those real Kobe-style beef restaurants, for wealthy people? The cattle are fed beer and given daily massages. The meat is really expensive. We stopped importing authentic Kobe beef from Japan several years ago, during the epidemic of "mad cow disease." That stuff costs more than $100 per pound.

do you know if that includes the heart?

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

However I sincerely doubt that the "mutton" proclaimed on the menus is actually goat meat.

"Mutton" is sheep flesh. It's one of those French words like beef/steer and pork/pig.

Goat meat was never a staple in Great Britain and the U.S., so "mutton" still refers only to the meat of an adult sheep in our countries. It isn't popular here at all, we only eat lamb--and I'm not at all fond of that. Some people say that goat tastes like lamb but I find a world of difference. Others say it resembles the taste of venison but I don't agree with that either, although I think venison is okay.

In the Caribbean and South Asia, where goat meat is more commonly eaten (and perhaps sheep meat is not), the word "mutton" has been appropriated for it.

If you can't taste the difference between beef and goat meat, you might as well be a vegetarian.

I recall gagging the first time we boiled lamb in Saudi Arabia because it smelled of sweat.

Boiled lamb??? You boil tough meat to make it tender! The meat of young animals IS tender. That's why you go to the expense of eating them before they're mature. You're supposed to roast a leg of lamb!

do you know if that includes the heart?

No. But the Japanese are very strict and traditional about their food. Their butchers are considered "untouchables" like in India. I'm sure they would not accept the idea of offal mixed in with their meat!

 

[S.A.M.]

"Mutton" is sheep flesh. It's one of those French words like beef/steer and pork/pig.

Goat meat was never a staple in Great Britain and the U.S., so "mutton" still refers only to the meat of an adult sheep in our countries. It isn't popular here at all, we only eat lamb--and I'm not at all fond of that. Some people say that goat tastes like lamb but I find a world of difference. Others say it resembles the taste of venison but I don't agree with that either, although I think venison is okay.

In the Caribbean and South Asia, where goat meat is more commonly eaten (and perhaps sheep meat is not), the word "mutton" has been appropriated for it.

If you can't taste the difference between beef and goat meat, you might as well be a vegetarian. Boiled lamb??? You boil tough meat to make it tender! The meat of young animals IS tender. That's why you go to the expense of eating them before they're mature. You're supposed to roast a leg of lamb![/b]

In India, mutton is goat or sheep if you're shopping at the butchers. Its quite rare to get sheep, we got it a couple of times when the neighbors killed them for Bakr Eid, usually we get goat. Our goats range from waist height to shoulder height [at their tallest point]. Goat meat is more expensive than beef [Rs 220 per kg vs Rs 100 per kg, with bone] and is usually more tender.

On boiled lamb: Saudis like their lamb roasted or baked or stewed, but in hospitals we prepare special diets which require bland fat free cooking. One year old lambs [Sudanese or Australian], whole, skinned and without internal organs were delivered to us based on requirements. We prepared boiled lamb for some patients/

edit: I recall this from a conversation but apparently boiled lamb is an English staple. Or typically English. Perhaps Lucy would know?

 

[Tiassa]

Look, Mom! No endnotes!

Are those real Kobe-style beef restaurants, for wealthy people? The cattle are fed beer and given daily massages. The meat is really expensive. We stopped importing authentic Kobe beef from Japan several years ago, during the epidemic of "mad cow disease." That stuff costs more than $100 per pound.

Interestingly, perhaps, the last time I ate at the Met, we had a pleasant, critical discussion with our waiter about the beef they were using. Yes, the Kobe was expensive, but everything is there. Still, though, even their chef prefers Nebraska beef. Don't get me wrong, it's a special beef that costs at least as much as the Kobe. But yeah, it's really good. The thing is that with Kobe, the fat doesn't marble through as much or well as it does with other beef. At least, that was my understanding from the brief review. Or maybe that was the Wagyu. At any rate, there comes a point at which the difference is one of taste.

To the other, yeah, it seems like the Kobe is a wealthy specialty. I passed recently on a sixteen dollar Kobe burger because what I really wanted was the hummus.

Okay, not really. But I didn't see the point of getting a Kobe burger and then putting bacon on it. Compared to the eleven dollar bacon burger, I probably wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

Not that their hummus was bad, but I know from experience that there is little point in paying ten dollars for a tablespoon of hummus impossibly barricaded inside a bunch of sliced olives.

Anyway, wealthy or not so wealthy, it's worth finding an excuse to spend on the Met if you're in Seattle.

Or El Gaucho.

Anyway, it's better than what Lunch Lady Doris serves.

• • •​

That's right, there's a topic here. Sorry, I forgot. You know, thinking about a really good prime New York peppercorn steak and all. I don't know much about beef heart, other than I avoid it on general principle (e.g., yuck factor). But I did come across a page with a few beef heart recipies: Hot German Sweet and Sour Beef Heart (?!), Beef Heart Burgers, Beef Heart with Rice, and Coney Island Chili to be put on hot dogs. I can't say much about any of it, but if I have to add chicken boullion, chicken noodle soup, and bacon to my beef heart, perhaps one should reconsider before eating it.

 

[S.A.M.]

The yuck factor:

Why isn't there a yuck factor for peripheral muscle? Why for heart muscle?

 

[Tiassa]

So complex, this thing called the heart

Why isn't there a yuck factor for peripheral muscle? Why for heart muscle?

Because it's heart. I'm sorry; in all seriousness, if I was a semiotician, I might be able to explain that. In the mythopoeic context, think of all the things that the heart stands for. Or, even, its mythological significance in holy texts. The bottom line, though, is a matter of psychological conditioning.

 

[S.A.M.]

Hmm. So I suppose brain would be out of the question? I've never understood the selective yuck factor. Its all meat to me.

 

[Tiassa]

Onion Peelings, Minus Perdurabo

For me, yes, brain is out of the question. I don't eat tongue, stomach, liver, or hoof, either. Unless it happens to be ground up in one of the unidentifiable meat cocktails I consume.

And now that I think of Indiana Jones, I don't eat eyeballs, either.

I think it's sort of a cultural thing. In places around the world that don't have the luxury of waste that Americans have achieved, I wouldn't expect people to have developed an aesthetic so hostile toward offal. But in our quest to use every little piece of the animal, humanity has invented some pretty repugnant food. I can't bring myself to eat chorizo; no need to rehash that. Hot dogs, for years, have been described colloquially as "lips and assholes". Add to it I'm very particular about food textures.

To the other, though, I'll eat food that has been poisoned. I mean, I don't need a slice of bacon wrapped around my steak, but yeah, I adore those nitrite-laden slices of piggy. (But I'll also growl at a chef who wastes my steak by putting a scoop of butter on top of the damn thing, even if I adore real butter and prefer to avoid all its fake substitutes.)

It's almost purely aesthetic, and largely cultural. Hell, I can't even bring myself to eat Spam®, and I used to love that stuff when I was a kid. Then again, from what I hear, it's destroying Guam.

Aesthetics are a luxury that is part of my cultural education. Ask me what I'll eat if you ever happen to find me in the middle of a war. I'll bet my answer is different. (I'll probably have a good recipe for cinnamon yak heart over rice.)

I mean, I'll be in the UK and Ireland for a couple of weeks later this year, and if you find me eating something other than fish and chips, it will probably mean that I've finally confirmed that Douglas Adams was either wrong or has been rendered obsolete about pizza delivery in London. Oh, right. The bacon. Even without the nitrites, it's good stuff. It's going to be torture, though. I don't like onions.

 

[S.A.M.]

Yes, I understand that its cultural. Because I have seen people who will not eat fish if the head is still attached to it. And the head is really the best part. And I love stomach and hooves, the concoctions we make from those are just smashing. We have people who visit us from the US every few years only to gorge out on that stuff and because its hard to get it there.

Have fun in the UK. Maybe you'll do bangers and mash and black pudding.

 

[Orleander]

...Their butchers are considered "untouchables" like in India. I'm sure they would not accept the idea of offal mixed in with their meat!

do you have a link to that? I have never heard that Japanese butchers were thought of that way.
And I thought the Japanese would eat almost anything.
When I worked at a meat packing plant, the things we wouldn't eat (such as tendon) were sold to the Japanese. They sliced tendon paper thin and pickled it. In America I see it in the pet food store as a chew item right along side pig ears

 

[Tiassa]

If I want blood clots, I'll just eat a bunch of bacon and enjoy the stroke

Have fun in the UK. Maybe you'll do bangers and mash and black pudding.

I can already tell you nay on the black pudding. And also that I intend to test Denis Leary's proposition that beer is food. (And also Lewis Black's theory about Irish rehab, but that is subordinate to the Leary test.)

 

[Orleander]

I can already tell you nay on the black pudding. And also that I intend to test Denis Leary's proposition that beer is food. (And also Lewis Black's theory about Irish rehab, but that is subordinate to the Leary test.)

ah well, I grew up eating that at my grandparent's. Grandma sliced it and fried it. Ate pig skins, bull testicles, soft shelled crab (blech), cow and chicken liver.

I have a harder time eating eel and catfish than I do ground beef heart. I would have a much harder time eating it if it wasn't ground up to look identical to hamburger, which I guess is exactly what it is.

 

[dixonmassey]

Eating internal organs of industrially raised animals is 100 times more stupid than eating their meat. Kidney, liver? Are you serious? Those are "filters" accumulating all kind of garbage fed to animals. Geez.

 

[Tiassa]

Yig

ah well, I grew up eating that at my grandparent's. Grandma sliced it and fried it. Ate pig skins, bull testicles, soft shelled crab (blech), cow and chicken liver.

I have a harder time eating eel and catfish than I do ground beef heart. I would have a much harder time eating it if it wasn't ground up to look identical to hamburger, which I guess is exactly what it is.

Apparently in some places they eat isopods, which are giant, underwater lice-looking things:

It's Cloverfield all over, again. A two and a half foot isopod recently pulled from the ocean somewhere.
(via PopSci)​

I suppose soft-shell crab isn't the most blech thing I can imagine.
____________________

Notes:

Dillow, Clay. "Yard-Long Undersea Bug Terrorizes Robo-Sub, Internet". PopSci. March 30, 2010. PopSci.com. March 30, 2010. http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-03/giant-25-foot-isopod-terrorizes-robo-sub-internet

 

[S.A.M.]

Apparently in some places they eat isopods, which are giant, underwater lice-looking things:

It's Cloverfield all over, again. A two and a half foot isopod recently pulled from the ocean somewhere.
(via PopSci)​

I suppose soft-shell crab isn't the most blech thing I can imagine.
____________________

Notes:

Dillow, Clay. "Yard-Long Undersea Bug Terrorizes Robo-Sub, Internet". PopSci. March 30, 2010. PopSci.com. March 30, 2010. http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-03/giant-25-foot-isopod-terrorizes-robo-sub-internet

I would eat that. I love crustaceans. When cooking for myself I never remove the head of prawns. I just snip off the whiskers and very gently remove the shell over the body and tail. Sometimes when they are very fresh I don't even bother shelling them, because the shell is stuck to the body.

This here is my favourite prawn: black tiger prawns

Feel free to gross out.

 

[Trippy]

However I sincerely doubt that the "mutton" proclaimed on the menus is actually goat meat.

Really?

Over here Mutton is Sheep (old sheep), rather than Goat.

"Mutton dressed as Lamb" is a derogatory phrase directed at, for example a 50 year old person dressed as a 15 year old - generally in a similar context to "Silk purse from a sows ear".

I'm not really a fan of Offal either, although I can honestly say I haven't tried heart, I guess I always just assumed it tasted the same as other Offal - basically, to me it just tastes like cooked blood, but that could be poor preperation.

Also not really a fan of most seafood.

 

[S.A.M.]

Really?

Over here Mutton is Sheep (old sheep), rather than Goat.

"Mutton dressed as Lamb" is a derogatory phrase directed at, for example a 50 year old person dressed as a 15 year old - generally in a similar context to "Silk purse from a sows ear".

I was referring to unscrupulous restaurants not nomenclature/

I'm not really a fan of Offal either, although I can honestly say I haven't tried heart, I guess I always just assumed it tasted the same as other Offal - basically, to me it just tastes like cooked blood, but that could be poor preperation.

All offal has a distinctive taste. It has to be cooked extremely fresh and unlike meat I never ever refrigerate and thaw any offal. From the butchers block to the pot. Its my opinion that the only way to eat meat or fish or vegetables is very fresh. My grandmother raised chickens and I live in Mumbai, where fresh fish is available every morning when the boats come in at 5 am and fresh meat is available to order [ie call the butcher the day before and he will send you what you need next morning after slaughter], so I have been spoiled for choice.

No offal tastes like any other. You can distinguish by taste texture and aroma between all organs.

Also not really a fan of most seafood.

Get outta here!!!!!

 

[Trippy]

I was referring to unscrupulous restaurants not nomenclature/

Fairy nuff.

All offal has a distinctive taste. It has to be cooked extremely fresh and unlike meat I never ever refrigerate and thaw any offal. From the butchers block to the pot. Its my opinion that the only way to eat meat or fish or vegetables is very fresh. My grandmother raised chickens and I live in Mumbai, where fresh fish is available every morning when the boats come in at 5 am and fresh meat is available to order [ie call the butcher the day before and he will send you what you need next morning after slaughter], so I have been spoiled for choice.

No offal tastes like any other. You can distinguish by taste texture and aroma between all organs.

I respect your choices, and I understand fully what you mean, but, based on my experiences with Offal, the mere thought makes my stomach churn, having said that, if you served it to me without telling me what it is, I might eat it without realizing what I'm eating it, I don't know if I'd enjoy it, but I'd probably throw up when you told me what it was. I dunno, it's the fact that I know what the function of the liver and kidneys is, as much as anything else.

Get outta here!!!!!

Straight up.
I'll eat Hoki, Tarakihi, and Blue Cod. I don't mind Trout (rainbow or brown) or long finned eel, and my main problem with Schnapper is the fine bones. Not a huge fan of Anonyfish, I like to know what I'm eating, Shark and Stingray are borderline.

Crustaceans and Bivalves, no, not interested.

But then, I was born allergic to most food, so... :shrug:

Actually, there is one significant exception - Curried Mussels with Fry Bread. I actually enjoy to some extent the occasional plate of curried mussels, and very occasionaly marinated mussels.