Nothing says home cookin' like a charred beaver tail

[layla]

I've never made apple pie. Actually, I've never eaten homemade apple pie. It just wasn't something that my mom ever cooked -- not that she was a bad or even an indifferent cook, but, like meatloaf or casserole, it just wasn't something that she ever cooked, that I can recall.

But Orion likes it, so tonight we collaborated on a pie. He made the crust and I made the filling. Considering that neither of us had ever made a pie before, it came out ... excellent, really. Very good with vanilla ice cream.

While waiting for the pie to cook, I got engrossed in reading the cookbook. Our cookbook, "Joy of Cooking", is a hoot. I love some of their turns of phrase. "Octopus and squid belong to the general category of horrendous-looking sea creatures" begins the section header before the recipe entitled "Squid in Ink Sauce." There are recipes for muskrat, raccoon and squirrel, and ones for everything that could possibly come from a cow, pig or sheep, including the stomach lining (tripe), thymus gland, brains, tails, feet, tongue (which actually is quite good, although very disturbing to look at) and of course that world-renowned delicacy ... lamb's testicles! Mmmm! Considering how Orion reacted when I tried to serve him kidneys, I imagine that a platter of boar's head lightly garnished with cow brains, chicken combs and lamb's testicles (all of which the cookbook thoughtfully tells you how to prepare) would guarantee that I'd never have to cook again.

My current favorite recipe might be the one for beaver's tail. It just says "Hold over open flame until blisters form." That's my kind of cookin' ... none of this futzing around with measuring cups and oven temperature. Just stick the thing in a fire until it chars. Then eat it.

EDIT: You know, I'd heard of sweetbreads (as in, an edible part of the animal) but never really knew what part of the animal they are ... until reading this cookbook. Sweetbreads are the pancreas and thymus gland.

Mm-mm! Nothin' gets you going in the morning like a nice big plate of glands!

... by "going", of course, I mean in the sense of "as far away from the glands as possible". Especially if they're served in a nice cream sauce with a spinach ring, which is what the book tells you to do.

EDIT 2: I don't know where "tripe" acquired its present-day meaning of something meaningless and trivial. As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing trivial about a plateful of stomach lining.

Comments

[arcana-j.livejournal.com]

The pie sounded good. The rest did not. Bleh!

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

It's really amazing what people will eat, isn't it?

Actually, I would imagine that most of them aren't too bad, if you can get over the whole idea of what you're eating. I've eaten some unusual things (tongue, kidney, escargot, squid ...) and for the most part, it's tasty, if you don't get too hung up on where it came from. On general principle, if you're a carnivore anyway, there's no real difference between eating the critter's thigh muscle and its gonads. At least, there shouldn't be. In reality, however, I think I'd have to be crawling through the desert, desperate for food, before I'd even consider the idea of eating anything's testicles ...

[arcana-j.livejournal.com]

I've eaten some odd things myself, and often wondered how some things game to be considered food in the first place. Who decided that the artichoke would be good eating? Or the crawdad? But I have to agree, there are certain things that clearly cross the line between "cut of meat" and "dubious body part", and would make me turn vegetarian before I ate them.

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

The ones that really puzzle me are the foods that are poisonous in their natural form, like cashews and tapioca. How hungry do you have to be before you figure out the particular series of steps that turn a poisonous plant into an edible one?