SC - organ meats

[Stefan li Rous]

Sieggy der Omnivore proclaimed: 
>     Because traditionally, organ meats have been regarded as offal. The
> aristocracy ate the more succulent muscles, and sometimes (rarely) the
> organs, but something like tripe would have been beneath them. Personally, I
> like chitterlings, but I'll guarantee you that they have NEVER served to a
> member of the nobility except perhaps under siege conditions, or a PC photo
> op.

I'm not sure how much of this you intend as serious commentary and how
much is simply in humor, but I think you have the desireablity of muscles
vs. organ meats backwards. Without modern mineral suppliments and with a
lot of hard labor, even for the nobility, I believe the organ meats are
what would be preceived as the coveted pieces in many cases. I do not
have specific ratios of these, but there certainly are plenty of various
organ meat recipes.

For a few see:
organ-meats-msg   (43K) 12/ 1/99    Period cooking of organ meats.

Sotelties were likely to be served only to the well-off. Haslet,
a vegetarian mixture made to look like intestines if I remember
correctly, was a fairly common soteltie. While this could have
been served for the "horror" factor as is commonly done today, I
suspect it was more likely the unexpected taste that was intended.
(ie: getting fruit taste rather organ meat taste).

As to tripe not being served, that I will agree with. It isn't the 
mineral resource that the organ meats are. If someone has a period recipe
that uses tripe, I'd be interested in seeing it. Personally having just
recently had tripe in a Pho Bok type soup, I don't think I like the
texture and chewiness, but... we'll see.

Chitterlings fall in the same category and in addition are fried, deep
fried if I remember correctly. Cooking oils don't seem to be that common,
particularly in the quantities needed for deep frying until the 19th
century and industrial production of vegetable oils.
  
>     (and besides, less than 3 people out of a thousand know how to prepare
> liver properly, I'd wager . . .)

Today or then? Again, you might want to take a look at the organ-meats-msg
file just mentioned.

- -- 
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****