Misguided Eating: The Nose to Toes Food Trend
I've been noticing for a few years now a kind of drooling over the idea of eating offal. Restaurants are created around it, highlight it, boast about it; some even let you watch the chef carve the animal into chunks before he cooks it up and serves it to you. Cookbooks are devoted to it and food and cooking programs glorify man’s love of the squishy and odd – the most personal and utilitarian parts of every kind of animal. Just in the past week, three magazines I subscribe to had articles about “snout to tail” dining. One of them, Cooking Light – Cooking Light! – has a short article about it with the tagline: Not everyone likes innards. But some of those now-trendy parts aren’t as unhealthy as you think. They suggest that you need not start with the guts – go slowly and start with a lowly shank or shoulder steak and put it in your slow cooker. (At least they caution against eating brain.) After a few weeks of eating these “gateway” parts you’ll be carving into liver, heart and stomach!
Which got me to thinking about this scenario: a group of lions and tigers and grizzly bears have gathered together for a feast of human body parts; all the different pieces thoughtfully prepared in a variety of ways. They’re discussing not the generous thighs or breasts, but the less obvious parts, the “nasty bits.” “Hmmm, the nose looks a little tough, but I do love the little fatty area in the cheeks – such a delicacy!” “I’m not much for the knee caps, myself, but I hear they make a sublime broth!” “Frankly, I find the liver a bit gamey, but seared quickly and served with a dried cherry-port reduction it isn’t so bad.”
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