Ground Beef Hearts

[Fraggle Rocker]

I recall this from a conversation but apparently boiled lamb is an English staple.

English cuisine is infamous. And I don't think that's a racial insult because the Brits say that themselves. This is why Indian and Chinese food is so popular there. John Cleese said it succinctly: "English food? Boiled grease."

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

Brain is called "sweetbreads."

do you have a link to that? I have never heard that Japanese butchers were thought of that way.

It's one of those old traditions that's slowly fading away, but the prejudice still exists against the burakumin: people who are too close to death. Undertakers, executioners, butchers, tanners, etc.

In America I see it in the pet food store as a chew item right alongside pig ears

Chinese love pig ears, they eat them like pretzels.

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

Isopods are merely crustaceans like lobsters and shrimp, and crustaceans are merely one order of arthropods, which also include insects, arachnids (spiders, scorpions, mites and ticks) and myriapods (centipedes and millipedes). Crustaceans are colloquially referred to as "aquatic bugs," but the isopods are a major exception: many of them are terrestrial, and the most familiar isopods are pillbugs and woodlice, so your "lice" description is apt.

Isopods have seven pairs of legs and abbreviated carapaces. Many of them are parasites. One species eats the tongue of a fish and then fits into its mouth. It exactly replaces the tongue: taking its place to participate in feeding, while connecting to its circulatory system and taking nutrition from the fish's blood. This form of parasitism-becoming-symbiosis is unique in the animal kingdom.

Now, someone was talking about ick factors?

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

Mouton is an old French word for "sheep," so the original meaning of the word is "sheep meat." Goat husbandry was not practiced in England so English has no special word for goat meat. As the English language spread to other cultures where it is more common, "mutton" was appropriated for goat meat, especially in cultures where goats are more common than sheep.

Goats, sheep and antelope are closely related and in some species the identification is somewhat arbitrary. Goats are one of the oldest domesticated animals, going back to at least 8000BCE. Like pigs and dogs, goats are scavengers, and like those species they were almost certainly self-domesticated to a certain extent, being attracted to our luscious middens (trash piles).

"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".

Each sheepherding culture seems to have its own terminology for the meat of the sheep as it ages. The term "hogget" is used in some countries, such as New Zealand, for a young adult.

 

[S.A.M.]

."Brain is called "sweetbreads."

Nope, its the thymus and pancreas.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Nope, its the thymus and pancreas.

So it is. Sorry! I can't find any clever euphemism for brain as food, suggesting that, like goat meat, it was never eaten in England.

Today it's considered inedible in most Western countries. In fact hunters and butchers wear gloves when handling brains to avoid contracting several dreadful prion-transmitted diseases such as encephalitis and chronic wasting disease.

In the recent past the brains of various animals were used in the cuisine of France, Indonesia, a few Latin American countries and the American South. The aboriginal people of Cameroon fed the brain of a gorilla to a new tribal chief while another elder ate the heart.

 

[Orleander]

what's headcheese?

And why does a meat need to have a euphemism to be eaten? Why couldn't the English simply call it brains and eat it?

 

[quadraphonics]

what's headcheese?

It's a meat jelly made from boiling the meat off of the head of an animal (typically a cow) and then congealing it in aspic.

 

[Orleander]

no brains in it?

 

[Tiassa]

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way ... er ... among other things

And why does a meat need to have a euphemism to be eaten? Why couldn't the English simply call it brains and eat it?

Because that wouldn't be the English way. You don't serve "cow brains". You need to name it something fancy, and hopefully bizarre, like "India pudding". That is the English way.

 

[Orleander]

hmmm, what do the English call kidneys?? Oh Yeah..kidneys!
so why wouldn't they call brains brains?
I really think they called them meat pies.

 

[S.A.M.]

hmmm, what do the English call kidneys?? Oh Yeah..kidneys!
so why wouldn't they call brains brains?
I really think they called them meat pies.

Do you mean mincemeat pies? They usually contain fruit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincemeat

So it is. Sorry! I can't find any clever euphemism for brain as food, suggesting that, like goat meat, it was never eaten in England.

Today it's considered inedible in most Western countries. In fact hunters and butchers wear gloves when handling brains to avoid contracting several dreadful prion-transmitted diseases such as encephalitis and chronic wasting disease.

In the recent past the brains of various animals were used in the cuisine of France, Indonesia, a few Latin American countries and the American South. The aboriginal people of Cameroon fed the brain of a gorilla to a new tribal chief while another elder ate the heart.

Brain is a popular delicacy here. You have to order at least 3 days in advance to be sure of getting it.

 

[Trippy]

Do you mean mincemeat pies? They usually contain fruit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincemeat

And yet, here, if you were to ask for a 'Mince and cheese pie' you would get ground beef, rather than fruit mince.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Brain is a popular delicacy here. You have to order at least 3 days in advance to be sure of getting it.

Is it safer there??? Or do people just not worry about it?

 

[S.A.M.]

Is it safer there??? Or do people just not worry about it?

I guess we just don't worry about it. Can't imagine why it would be safer :shrug:

 

[John99]

i would eat the bark off a tree before i ate brains. not that there is anything wrong with it, just something i couldn't do.

 

[Bells]

I guess we just don't worry about it. Can't imagine why it would be safer :shrug:

You'd still eat it, even with the risks involved?

 

[S.A.M.]

Sure. I eat at roadside stalls and sit at dhabas for tea. I drink tap water. I have great immune function.

 

[Bells]

Sure. I eat at roadside stalls and sit at dhabas for tea. I drink tap water. I have great immune function.

I'm not talking about how well your bowels handle the local microbes in the water.

 

[S.A.M.]

I mean, I'm generally adventurous when it comes to food. Or foolhardy. I eat mystery meats and stuff that every one else will gag on. I only draw the line at bugs and insects but if challenged, I'd probably eat them too.

 

[Bells]

I mean, I'm generally adventurous when it comes to food. Or foolhardy. I eat mystery meats and stuff that every one else will gag on. I only draw the line at bugs and insects but if challenged, I'd probably eat them too.

There is only one thing that comes to mind right now and that is.. AMG!!

I can't eat things like liver and kidney, etc. I actually don't like the taste. I am adventurous with what I eat to a certain degree. Organs like livers, kidneys, hearts, etc, I am not adventurous.. in fact, one could say I am almost cowardly. Brains I detest with a passion.

I couldn't even feed lambs brains to my children when they were babies, even with recommendations from family and being able to buy it in babyfood jars (because I refused to even buy it to prepare it, they suggested I buy it in the jar).. I couldn't do it. My mother tried the 'well you ate it as a child!' routine, to which I replied 'yes, and look what you created Mother.. an atheist.. an ATHEIST!'.. she never brought it up again after that..

 

[S.A.M.]

Thats how most of my family is too. I'm fey I think. I have happily chewed on goat penises, baby octopuses, squirrels, quails, lizards, snake, hooves, eyes, teats and even antelope liver. I don't even know what I have eaten in Chinese buffets since all their traditional dishes are made of organ meats.

The way I see it, its only those 20 amino acids in various combinations with lipids and carbohydrates.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Sure. I eat at roadside stalls and sit at dhabas for tea. I drink tap water. I have great immune function.

From the Wikipedia article on Brain as food:

Prions:

Brain consumption can result in contracting fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and other prion diseases in humans and mad cow disease in cattle. Another prion disease called kuru has been traced to a funerary ritual among the Fore people of Papua New Guinea in which those close to the dead would eat the brain of the deceased to create a sense of immortality. Some archaeological evidence suggests that the mourning rituals of European Neanderthals also involved the consumption of the brain. Because of the risk of being infected by prions one should always wear gloves when handling brains.

I don't think your immune system is going to put up much of a defense against that stuff.

The way I see it, it's only those 20 amino acids in various combinations with lipids and carbohydrates.

That's been updated to 22. (Diet for a Small Planet, 1991 edition.) We can synthesize 14 of them out of any of the others, but we need to ingest the other 8 intact.