[Sca-cooks] Food and squeamishness

[Mark Hendershott]

Ate pigs' ears in a tapas bar in Madrid once.  They had been smoked and 
were then cooked on a grill.  Sort of like eating very crunchy bason.

Simon Sinneghe
Briaroak, Summits, An Tir

At 11:22 AM 5/10/04 -0400, Adamantius wrote:
>Also sprach Susan Fox-Davis:
>>>>  I was wondering, has anyone ever served food at a feast such as a whole
>>>>pig's or ox's head, or a whole piglet, or, basically, anything that can
>>>>stare right back at you while you munch on it?
>>I'm going to ask the white-girl-city-kid question:  how exactly do you 
>>eat a pig's or ox's head, when it is presented whole like that?
>
>Serious head-eating cultures frequently seem to prefer to split the head, 
>to better get at the brain and tongue, and have a little better control 
>over the cooking rates of the various parts (think of the times when it's 
>a good idea to separate the dark meat and white meat of birds, and cook 
>them for different periods of time. You can still eat the head whole, but 
>people that like brains often find them pretty overcooked and tasteless by 
>the time the rest of the head is done.
>
>>   Which parts are edible, or at least tastier than others?
>
>I suppose you're not too hugely squeamish, or we wouldn't be having this 
>discussion. Think of all those rarely-used, rarely-noticed muscles in your 
>head. Your cheeks, lips, the ones you may use to wiggle your ears or nose, 
>or eyebrows, or those weird people that can wriggle their scalps back and 
>forth. Most of those muscles are present in sheep's, calves', and pig's 
>heads, and are essentially viable meat. Attached to them are various bits 
>of gristly stuff, some made of elastin, which doesn't break down in 
>cooking, and collagen, which does (IOW, it becomes tender enough to chew, 
>for those that like stuff like pig's feet, oxtails, etc., it's pretty similar).
>
>Choice bits on a pig's head, for those that like or will eat them, anyway, 
>seem to be the jowls (the cheek muscles, so much so that they are often 
>cured separately like small hams: see Bath Chaps and that Italian stuff 
>like pancetta but whose name I forget, which is the traditional bacon 
>source for pasta carbonara and arrabiatta...), the tongue, and the eyes 
>(actually the muscles behind the eyes, although some do eat the eyes 
>themselves, which I consider a bit much myself).
>
>>  Which are nasty or too cartiliginous to bother with?  I take it that 
>> the eyes are no good, since they usually seem to get taken out and 
>> replaced with fruit.
>
>The eyes are frequently removed when the head is roasted, because they 
>shrink and fall out, and can look a little scary even to those with pretty 
>cast-iron stomachs, hence the cranberries. Some people do eat them, but 
>they have a lot of very tough membranous stuff (talk to your doctor about 
>how delicate your cornea is when scratched, but how friggin' tough it is 
>to puncture). The apple in the mouth is similar; the jaw muscles contract 
>and force the mouth open; you don't want to serve a screaming animal, usually.
>
>The ears and snout have non-soluble cartilage; some people eat them 
>anyway; one of the terrors of my in-laws' house in the summer was cold 
>pig's snout/ear salad. I'm all for crunch, but for some reason cartilage 
>isn't on my approved list of sources, especially when you boil the ear or 
>snout for three or four hours and the skin is nearly disintegrated, but 
>the cartilage is still intact.
>
>Some French recipes for calve's head vinaigrette, or head cheese, etc., 
>call for the ears and snout to be removed, at least from the final product.
>
>And then, there's the skin, the thin sheets of muscle encasing the head, 
>and the more tender (when cooked) connective tissue holding it all 
>together. Again, sort of like cooked pig's feet, but shaped differently.
>
>>  Brains?
>
>Best when cooked separately, but sometimes just eaten out of the cooked head.
>
>>   Ears?  My dog likes dried pig ears, they are sold by the dozen in pet 
>> supply stores as chewies.  Maybe she is on to something that we should 
>> know about?
>
>She's not squeamish. For me, I guess it's kind of similar to when you bite 
>into something like a chicken leg or thigh, and sometimes get a knuckle of 
>cartilage in your mouth. Some of that stuff does cook to a tender state, 
>but a lot of it we're just conditioned to regard as cartilage, which is a 
>bit like bone, and spit it out. Ironically, one of my favorite parts of a 
>roast chicken is the very end of the wing tip, because you can eat the 
>little bite, bones and all, like a potato chip.