All food lovers should eat more offal.
I recognise that’s a bold statement. While vegetarian foodies clearly get a pass on this one, I always prepare for pushback from otherwise grown-up and adventurous eaters. Negative responses seem overly influenced by distant childhood memories - dry liver in school dinners or pervasive odours from grannies boiling tripe. Sometimes there’s a visceral fear of the unknown or just an unexplored ‘icky’ reaction to the realities of animal anatomy and butchery.
Why then, do I persist in my personal crusade as an 'Advocate of Offal' and 'Promoter of Pluck'?
The reasons are many. In essence, it’s healthy, nutritious, affordable, versatile and sustainable with a historic pedigree of culture and recipes worldwide. It ticks all the contemporary boxes of zero waste and respect for the animal through nose-to-tail appreciation. Most importantly, it tastes great and delivers distinctive dishes with character and depth at one end of the spectrum and subtle delicacy at the other. Think Fergus Henderson at St John by Smithfield Market with his deeply flavoured tender ox heart, offset with bitter radicchio and pickled walnuts or Mark Hix’s charming recipe for meadow fresh Launceston lamb sweetbreads with peas – redolent of balmy summers. Such character, accessibility and indeed value are much needed faced with the bland sameness of so many ingredients today.
Compared to many European neighbours and those further afield, we have developed a reticence to the so-called lesser cuts over recent generations that would surprise our own ancestors.
The foodie destination of Testaccio district in Rome with its famous market and restaurant scene grew up around the old slaughterhouse. Here workers were often paid in the ‘quinto quarto’ or the fifth quarter of the animal (the prime cuts being the two fore and hind quarters and the remainder being offal, tail and head). These made their way into still popular dishes such as the Coratella served at down to earth Piatto Romano – a confident and flavour-packed riot of lambs kidneys, heart and liver, slow-cooked with artichokes and bay. Similarly in France, Lyon’s traditional Bouchon restaurants confidently satisfy the discerning palates of their customers with hearty dishes of baked veal heads, andouillete, or the so-called ‘soldiers apron’ of thick fried paunch tripe. In southern Spain, common tapas include criadillas (testicles fried in breadcrumbs - served in my family home in Devon in the 1960s as Fry) or sangre encebollada (baked chicken blood with onion). Granada’s local speciality is tortilla Sacromonte where the eggs are baked with sheep’s brains. Closer to home in London, Barrafina offers milk-fed lamb kidneys while marinaded duck tongues are a treat in many a quality Chinese restaurant.
Perhaps our lower levels of enthusiasm for these ‘variety cuts’ come from an association of offal with poverty as opposed to the now ubiquitous prime cuts of muscle meat, perhaps it’s amnesia around its preparation, perhaps it’s a distancing from actual butchery, perhaps it’s simply supply chain availability in a food system that favours long shelf-life.
If all of this still feels a step too far, there’s no shame in starting gently. A silky smooth chicken liver parfait with local bread and chutney is a staple in many a good pub, with a fine example recently spotted at The Farmers Arms in Woolfardisworthy. Proper slow-cooked steak and kidney is a thing of beauty and if tradition is your thing, then Rules in Covent Garden offers the choice of pie or pudding – with oysters included for those inclined. The signature black pudding and foie gras at The Star at Harome has been on the menu for over 25 years with no sign of it falling out of favour. In Birmingham’s jewellery quarter, unctuous oxtail and butterbeans at Devon House gives a Caribbean take on a global favourite.
Perhaps these thoughts might encourage those who haven’t yet been seduced by the joys of offal to consider broadening their repertoire. Ironically, many of those ‘offal-shy’ I meet, already unwittingly enjoy its contribution to pates, pies, sausages, faggots, haggis and the like. Perhaps such brief encounters could build their confidence and curiosity and with a little encouragement lead them to developing more open and lasting relationships of the heart - along with the kidneys, the liver, the tongue and other under-appreciated delicacies.
As Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, that French culinary influencer of the 1800s, observed in The Physiology of Taste: 'The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star.'
Personally, I believe that offal should be more widely recognised as a constellation in its own right – with the opportunities for discovery embraced accordingly.
— Inspector JA
