Italy turns back the culinary clock

[Bolas De Fraile]

This is a well judged piece, more lungs anyone Italy turns back culinary clock to ride out recession | World news | guardian.co.uk

[Steve Kroll]

Good article.

Lungs? Sure. I'll eat almost anything, provided it's drowned in a sufficient amount of gravy.

[GLC]

Recession would have to get pretty dang bad for me to revert to original Texas cooking. F. Law Olmsted (who later designed Central Park and other notable grounds) rode through Texas from Louisiana to San Antonio in 1855 and wrote a book about it. (And briefly beyond San Antonio, despite the fact that it wasn't good for your hair to venture farther west.) There being few towns and no hotels for most of the trip, he stayed at homes along the way. (Cabins, really, frequently with the gable ends open to the sky. Some of them had doors.)

The meal was almost invariably fat salt pork (often cold), something that looked kind of like coffee, and corn "bread." The bread had been on the stalk in the field that morning. The corn was stripped, ground (well, mashed, really), and sort of pressed into a cake and cooked in a pan or on an iron plate. He might have starved but for the occasional offer of molasses and milk. (Not much milk. Texas was noted for having more cattle and less milk than nearly anywhere else. Longhorn cattle are not noted for their milk production or their ready cooperation in obtaining it.)

He expected things to improve when he reached Austin where there was actually a restaurant. He was wrong. In his own words, the meal was "burnt flesh of bulls and swine, decaying vegetables sour and mouldy like farinaceous glue, drowned in rancid butter." After weeks of cold salt pork and corn stuff, it must have been indeed horrible for him to dislike it so.

He finally got some good food in New Braunfels where the folks were (and still largely are) Germans and still cooking stunningly well.

We did, however, advance in culinary skill as the century wore on. By the time the great cattle operations were underway in the 1870's and 1880's, the high water mark of trail cooking was known as Sonofabitch Stew. It could easily rival the revived recession cooking of Italy.

Sonofabitch Stew


2 pounds of lean beef

Half a calf heart

1 ½ pounds of calf liver

1 set sweetbreads

1 set of brains

1 set of marrow gut

Salt, pepper to taste

Louisiana hot sauce

Cut the beef, liver, and heart into one inch cubes. Slice the marrow gut into rings. Place these ingredients into the Dutch oven and cover with water. Let it simmer for 2 to 3 hours. Add salt, pepper, and hot sauce. Chop sweetbreads and brains into small pieces and add to stew. Simmer another hour.


It's the marrow gut that's supposed to make the dish. Don't see much marrow gut in the grocer's meat department these days, but I suspect I could find some at the Fiesta grocery.

[taxlady]

I don't want anything that has liver that has been simmered for 2 to 3 hours. Yuck.

[HistoricFoodie]

A generation before that, the Mountain Men of the fur trade era also made a Sonofabitch Stew. In their case, however, it was an exact description of the main ingredient.

[GLC]

But I don't think Liver Eating Johnson left his recipe book behind. When John Johnson ate crow, he really ate Crow.

[Rocklobster]

I have always enjoyed cooking cheaper cuts of meat. It seems like the techniques and recipes required to make them edible are more interesting and rewarding.
I don't understand economics. To make food cheaper, why don't they squeeze out the middle man, raise more livestock and bring the prices down for the average consumer? Instead, they say, eat the lungs? I'm sure the politicians ain't eating the lungs...

[HistoricFoodie]

My favorite tale of that nature: David Love (the onetime dean of Rocky Mountain geology) grew up at the tail end of the old west. Among his father's friends was Chief Washakie. One day the old man's curiousity could no longer be contained, and he asked the chief if there was any truth to the story of him cutting out and eating his Crow enemy's heart. The chief's reply:

"Well, Johnny, when you're young, and full of life, you do strange things."

That's probably the greatest nonresponsive response I've ever heard.

[GLC]

In other words, Yes.

[CharlieD]

i love lung, it makes awesome stew.

[Margi Cintrano]

In Andalusia, a traditional delicacy of Spanish bullfighters has been
Criadillas de Toro, the testicles of a Bull. By legend, this type of meat is supposed to enhance virility.

Each to his own, yes ! ?

M.C.

[taxlady]

I have a Portuguese friend. When she was single and visiting Portugal, she was given a special treat at family meals. She got the penis of whatever animal they were eating.

[CraigC]

Originally Posted by Margi Cintrano

In Andalusia, a traditional delicacy of Spanish bullfighters has been
Criadillas de Toro, the testicles of a Bull. By legend, this type of meat is supposed to enhance virility.

Each to his own, yes ! ?

M.C.

They are quite popular in western states like Colorado, served as an appetizer called Rocky Mountain oysters.

[Bolas De Fraile]

Originally Posted by taxlady

I have a Portuguese friend. When she was single and visiting Portugal, she was given a special treat at family meals. She got the penis of whatever animal they were eating.

Quite right to Tax How To Cook A Beef Pizzle | LIVESTRONG.COM

[Margi Cintrano]

Tax Lady, Bolas and Craig,

Buenas Tardes, Good Afternoon, Guten Tag, Bom Día,

It is amazing how foods are re-named, named, translated from one language into another and how handed down legends and traditions play a role today worldwide.

I could not help but find the name of not only Rocky Mountain Oysters quite humorous, however, there are so many more hilariously blended and invented names for foods and cocktails too ...

Thanks for sharing.
Margi Cintrano.

[Katie H]

All this reminds me of the scene from one of the Indiana Jones movies where Indiana was "treated" to a meal of monkey's eyeballs served in skulls.

It's interesting what some folks will eat as normal, while many of us consider it not nearly so.

As Margi said, "To each his own." That's what makes the world go 'round.

[Margi Cintrano]

Tax Lady, Bolas and Craig,

Oh yes! Almost forgot to mention, that there are 2 Peruvian potato varieties which Pizarro had brought back to Spain on one of his voyages during the 1500s.

1) CRIADILLAS DE PLASENCIA: Plasencia is a historic city in the province of Extremadura, on the frontier with Portugal. This is a small yellow creamy interior potato. Of course, having nothing to do with Rocky Mountain Oysters ( criadillas de toro = bull testicles ) however, having ancient Inca powers of enhancement of intimate relationships.

2) VIOLET WRINKLED POTATOES: Papas arrugadas violetas, wrinkled violet potatoes, are an ancient potato variety in the Canary Islands, hailing from the Incas, and having legend that if you eat this potato, you shall not have wrinkles like the potato !

Fun,

M.C.

[CharlieD]

Originally Posted by Margi Cintrano

In Andalusia, a traditional delicacy of Spanish bullfighters has been
Criadillas de Toro, the testicles of a Bull. By legend, this type of meat is supposed to enhance virility.

Each to his own, yes ! ?

M.C.

Neah, it is an old wifes tale. They do absolutelly nothing. It is the organ attached to those "Cridillas ..." that enhance virility and supposedtly all other things alone with that.

By the wat I love all organs meat, but those cradillas just don't do anything for me.

[Luca Lazzari]

Dear Bolas, I think it's a somewhat misleading article. It's true we currently are in deep sh**t in Italy, but there is no such a revolution in the way of cooking and eating. And some things they wrote are not correct, in my superb opinion. We've been eating offals, brains, tongues, ears and blood from centuries and we're still doing it. And for horsemeat, you can easily find a horse butcher's quite in every town. Same thing for salami produced from horse meat. Some very popular dishes are made from offal, like trippa alla milanese (tripe Milan style) or the Roman rigatoni con la pajata (rigatoni pasta with calf's intestine), or from blood, like sanguinacci, just to name a few.
So, if you come in Italy, pay the utmost care when you read the menu...

[CharlieD]

I have to admit, before I started keeping kosher i used love salami made with horse meat. It was by far the best salami I have ever tasted.