Eating responsibly should include some thought towards waste. What is more wasteful than only eating bits and pieces of an animal that has been slaughtered on our behalf? There is a new movement towards nose-to-tail eating that is gaining steam in the environment of American frugal-chic. It wastes nothing and offal is amazingly cheap right now.

Once one gets over the cultural squick of eating organ meats, you may find that they are rather tasty. If I’m honest, I have to say that I have a long-standing issue with eating liver because of its function in the body. It’s one of the few things that I will not eat and I do understand having specific issues with specific body parts. I haven’t allowed this to limit my sampling of sweetbreads and heart (obviously, prior to becoming a pescatarian two years ago) and found them to be quite tasty.

The epicenter of the nose-to-tail movement has to be St John, an upscale restaurant in London owned and operated by Fergus Henderson. He’s the author of the amazing Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking and has had his praises sung by no less than Anthony Bourdain (who featured Chef Henderson on his “No Reservations” show on the Travel Channel) and Mario Batali. Chef Henderson is praised as being the spiritual father of this current round of nose to tail eating as a norm in the culinary world.

Historically speaking; during most of pre-1650 history in most places eating organ meats was normal. They were considered to be as much a part of the eating experience as the rest of the cuts of meat one got from an animal. There were even recipes for illusion food that resembled cooked offal (”Mock Entrails” in the “Liber Cure Cocorum”). The further back in history you go, the more of the animal people ate. The fact is that wasting parts of an animal is a display of wealth and prosperity as much as the clothing of the time moved from fabric conservative garments to lengths and lengths of draped fabric that showed that not only did you not weave your own fabric, but you could afford to pay someone else to make quite a lot of it. It’s the same with food - if you can throw food away, you have the excess to waste.

The serfs habitually ate nose to tail as they could not afford to waste any part of an animal. Each part of the animal was nutritionally useful and wasting the organs would mean possible hunger later down the road. This is true for rural families, who often use every bit of the animal in order to get the maximum benefit from the food and effort that goes into keeping the animal.

A medieval recipe from A Book of Cookrye, which was transcribed by Mark and Jane Waks and is located here

Original
How to boyle Pigges Petitoes.

Take your Pigs feet, and the Liver and Lightes, and cut them in small peeces, then take a little mutton broth and apples sliced, Corance, sweet butter, vergious and grated bread, put them altogither in a little pipkin with salt and Pepper, perboyle your petitoes or ever you put them in your Pipkin, then when they be ready, serve them upon sippets.

Translation
How to boil pig’s feet

Take your pig’s feet, and the liver and [lightes], and cut them in small pieces, then take a little mutton broth and apples sliced, currants, sweet butter, verjuice, and grated bread, put them altogether in a little pipkin with salt and pepper, parboyle your feet or ever you put them in your pipkin, then when they be ready, serve then upon pieces of bread with the crusts cut off.

As you can see, the pig’s feet are treated as any other cut of meat in a medieval cookbook. The ingredients and processes are the same as it would be for a pork shoulder or loin - because meat in general is dry, boiling or parboiling is recommended to balance the dry nature of the meat. The flavor is the typical sweet/sour (apples and currants balanced with the verjuice) and there is nothing indicating that cooking and serving the pig’s feet is notable in any fashion.

Nose to Tail eating is a very economical way to eat and there are many ways to prepare organ meats in a tasty way. As with everything, it’s finding out what you like and how you like it through trying different things in different ways.

Links:
Nose to Tail at Home - this is a great food blog by a talented writer and cook. His recent experience making a whole ham (a cut from hip to toe) from a recipe in Henderson’s book, “Ham Boiled in Hay” which may make an appearance on my table quite soon.

Deluxe Nose-to-Tail Meals - an article from MSNBC that centers on several New York based Chefs.

Beyond Nose to Tail: More Omnivorous Recipes for the Adventurous Cook - This is Fergus Henderson’s follow-up to his first book.

You must be logged in to post a comment.