Ryanj wrote:I left intact the whole head, stripped it of all its meats; brain, eyes, tongue and cheeks, and made a delightful risotto with it for an appetizer special. Sold them all in one night.

Ryan, I visited Mas a few years ago, and I must admit, I'm a little surprised that you got a lot of takers for brain and eyes. I've eaten both (must admit, not that crazy about eyes), and I'm kind of surprised that such a relatively "threatening" dish would have so many takers. Just curious, did you find that people who ordered it ended up finishing all the head meat?

Hammond

I'm surprised too, but especially that there weren't takers for the heart. I grew up, in a small-town white midwestern household, eating what seemed to me to be a pretty ordinary diet. But we didn't have a lot of money to spare, and I suspect that may have been the reason that both heart and tongue were in rotation. My mother cooked the heart like she would a pot-roast and served it on noodles, its anatomy undisguised as it came to the table. I admit, however, that I was never able to pull the same trick off with my own family, though I did recently successfully sneak a lamb heart into a curry I was making with lamb stew meat.

On the other hand, the lamb kidneys are sitting in my freezer and I haven't yet faced them, or any other kidneys for that matter. I attribute my squeamishness to the time we had a cat that the vet put on a diet of pork kidney. The smell was not an appetizing one.

The whole head was smoked, then braised, and with the braising sauce I made the risotto, we pulled all the edible pieces of meat from the head and stirred it in the risotto with some Argentine Reggiano, so most of what you were eating was maked by the rice. The amount we sold did surprise me, probably about fifteen orders worth on a Friday, however, I always make my staff try the specials before service, and if they like something they will really get behind it. They loved it so they sold it. One of my favorite head stories is from a chef friend of mine. He doesn't like to walk through the dining room often, and this is probably the reason why. A dinner guest had ordered the headcheese pate, and asked the chef what the black specks were, if they were cracked pepper or something else. He told her it was probably eye, which made her immediately drop her fork and push the plate away.

Mmm. I've had quite a few (yehhhh....lengua tacos.... ), but may lay awake dreaming of the day I can try Kitfo. Woo hoo!!!

I think presentation plays some role in whether something is off-putting or not. Consider, for example, the appetizer I had for dinner last Saturday night at La Fogata in Nuevo Progreso (across the border from Weslaco, TX).



While I've had (and enjoyed) braised cabrito head tacos (a Guanajuato specialty) before, this is the first time I've ordered a mesquite roasted cabeza de cabrito. I'm not particularly squeamish. But sitting there, looking into the vacant white eye of this little fellow, I could get some sense of why many people would consider the idea of eating an animal's head kind of icky.

Scott

Scott,

Fantastic pic. A possible candidate for the LTH Forum calendar 2006?

Hammond

Morscher Käse

Below my note in response to a query concerning where to find soprassata yesterday there appeared a brief first-time post by an LTH member bearing the name "casumarzu." As a Romanist and speaker of a southern Italian dialect, I recognised this name as a sequence of two words in some southern type dialect, the first of which is clearly the reflex of Latin caseum, source of the basic word for 'cheese' in the West Germanic languages, Eng. cheese, Dutch kaas, German Käse; cf. standard Italian 'cacio',* Neapolitan casë. The second element looked reminiscent of an adjectival form referring to the month of March and, indeed, in the area where my family in Italy lives (and elsewhere) there is a casë marzulinë, a caciotta cheese that is made with the plentiful sheeps milk of that time of year when lambs are born and soon slaughtered. But a form marzu for marzulinë offended my dialectal sensibilities, as it were, and so I wished to figure out a) whether the form was correct and b) if so, which southern dialect it was from and what the cheese in question actually was. The answer surprised me.

As I had surmised, there is a phrase 'casu marzu' and the first part is 'cheese'; the dialect is Logudorese, spoken in central and part of northern Sardinia, the most conservative of the main dialects on that island. The second part is, however, not related to the name of the month of March. Rather, the word marzu appears to be the Logudorese cognate of Tuscan and standard Italian marcio (cf. Latin marcidus 'drooping, withering' and marcor 'decay'). The phrase is then to be taken as 'rotten cheese'.

It is claimed that in parts of Sardinia and northern Italy, pecorino cheeses are sometimes left out so that they may attract flies, which in turn lay eggs. The larvae that hatch consume the cheese and give off enzymes that cause the cheese to ferment. According to an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the rotten cheese is consumed together with the maggots, as described here.

Buon appetito a voi tutti quanti!

ex cathedra,
Antonius Volcinus
Gesellschaft für Europäische Freßwissenschaft
Academia Novi Belgii
website: www.namnam.edu.

* In standard Italian the use of this word is rather restricted, the primary word for 'cheese' being formaggio.

Edited for typos only. Subsequently, post-site-move character problems fixed.

Oh yes, I remember that article. Vividly.

Su Callu e Crapittu: Il Caglio di Capretto

In researching casu marzu on less sensationalist and more informative Italian sites on Sardinian cheeses, I came across another cheese-related item which I dare say would strike many or most people in this country as a "disgusting food." Su Callu e Crapittu means in Logudorese 'the stomach of the kid'. The stomachs of kids, lambs and calves have traditonally been the major source for the agent, rennet, used to curdle milk and start the process of making cheese and such has naturally been the case in the pastoral communities of Sardinia. With kids born during November and slaughtered during the winter months, however, the stomach would itself be consumed along with the 'cheese', that is, the curdled creamy goat's milk, contained therein. The stomach would be removed, salted and immediately closed up and hung to dry for a bit. Traditionally, some smoking of the drying stomach would often occur when the callu would be hung inside the shepherd's small shieling, where he would have his fire for warmth and cooking.

Antonius

On a related note, "The Eight Worst Convenience Foods," at ma'ona.

Erik M.

I just ran across something that makes the kitty litter cake look appealing.

severed arm with rats

It's funny; 2 of my all-time favorite foods are on that list (Kimchee and Uni). If they put foie gras and raw oysters, we would have hit for the cycle.

Ann Fisher wrote:I just ran across something that makes the kitty litter cake look appealing.

severed arm with rats

Love the site: "They're coming to get you Barbara"

When I was in college, I told the "president" of the film society that I'd drop acid if he did a Night of the Living Dead night. He did; I didn't, and I was so glad because that film has stayed with me as the epitome of indie horror.

Any how, there are some delicious looking foods on that site!

Hammond