Why all meat eaters should occasionally taste the seamier side of the animal. 

 There was once a time, not so long ago, that every family's meal rotation (Red Beans and Rice on Monday, Taco Tuesday, etc.) included liver. My mother would foist it upon my brother and I every once in a while, when she determined we needed more nutrition. I hated everything about it, from the sight of it— dark red and slimy packed in plastic, the smell of it— metallic, and most of all the taste of it— pasty, dry, relatively flavorless, yet repulsive.

As a child, I thought liver was just another one of those wierd foods immigrant families feed their children: deep-fried whole smelt, soy braised pigs' feet, heck— we kids were encouraged to fight over the eyeballs of a steamed whole fish!

As an adult, I know that the offensive organ meat transcends culture. In Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, a Midwestern housewife concocts liver, onions and rutabaga as the Dinner of Revenge levelled against an absentee husband.

"Cauterized liver had the odor of fingers that had handled dirty coins."

"Brown grease-soaked flakes of flour were impastoed on the ferrous lobes of liver like corrosion."

The fictional family's youngest son Chip falls asleep at the dinner table, rather than suffer a mouthful of the vile meat.

Admittedly, liver and all its accessory organ meats, have never been the most popular fare. Over thirty years ago, MFK Fisher ruminated on that fact in The Trouble With Tripe.

But in the past twenty years, innards have disappeared from the American menu, with the exception of the poorest folk and the most elite foodies looking to prove their gastronomic muscle. Why eat the rubbery, stinky parts when you can have Filet Mignon?

 And that's a terrible thing.

For most of humankind's meat-eating history, people have endeavored to stretch a slaughtered animal to feed as many as possible. When the lords of the manor preferred their tender cuts of marbled beef, the entrails and oxtails were left for the peasants. Even Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking contains recipes such as: Liver with Mustard, Herbs, and Bread Crumbs,Calf's Brains in Red Wine with Mushrooms and Onions, and Veal Kidneys flamed in Brandy—Cream and Mushroom Sauce.

 The rise of 99-cent fast food probably contributes to the demise of organ meats. Why eat chitlins when you can have chicken nuggets? As does off-site packaging of meat. Red steaks and plumped-up chicken breasts arrive at the supermarket in their vacuum packed plastic, and the butcher is no longer behind the counter pushing the specials of the day, but doing his work in a packing plant somewhere in a different state. And it's probably a circular effect. Fears of Mad Cow Disease prevent the consumption of sweetbreads. Who wants to eat intestines? Isn't that where E. Coli comes from?

Mothers feed their kids vitamin supplements, instead of liver, to ensure adequate iron intake. My children have never tasted tongue, or tripe, or liver.

Yet, sometimes, I have a craving for something that tastes (and feels) real. Like I can identify what part of the animal it came from. There is something whole and satisfying about using turkey giblets to make Thanksgiving gravy. And the best cure for a hangover is purported to be a hot bowl of menudo (Mexican tripe soup).

Eating the innards brings necessary penance to the process of meat consumption. We won't carelessly mow through tri-tips and pork loins without giving thought to the where the meat came from, and how it got there. Occasionally, we should experience the wierd flavors and wierder textures of the beast.

And there is the aspect of sympathetic medicine. In Chinese tradition, consuming specific parts of an animal is believed to bring healing to the corresponding parts of the person. When I complained of knee pain, my older Chinese co-worker suggested I eat a bowl of beef tendon soup.

With that in mind, I think it's time to find some lengua.  

© 2010 Grace Hwang Lynch