Tatse - Heart, Liver, and Lungs

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This reading has probably been one of my favorites so far, not because of the fact that it is about taste necessarily, but because it discusses a kind of food that I enjoy while many others do not. It also discusses it in a wonderfully graphic way which, as someone who has spent a lot of time in many different kitchens, I find very entertaining. The description of Arlene and the elders dissecting the poultry actually made me hungry while it probably did the exact opposite for other readers. I have a love for eating the innards of animals, specifically poultry. I am not the kind of person who would eat brains, that freaks me out, but I am the kind of person who loves haggis. Haggis, for those of you who don't know, is a sheep's heart, liver, and lungs, minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally encased in the animal's stomach and boiled. Maybe I like it because I am Scottish but not all Scottish people actually like haggis. I'm the kind of person who finds five frozen chicken livers in my freezer, defrosts and fries them in a skillet, then eats them as a snack. The best way to do liver or a heart is to fry them in butter and a bit of truffle oil, and eat them with a good sriracha aioli. Long story short, I immensely enjoyed this reading and I am anticipating going home and asking my mother to remember the chicken livers and hearts when she goes to get her order from her farmer friends.

Above: The heart and liver from my Thanksgiving turkey (2021)


 

Comments

  1. Jonathan Brumberg-KrausMarch 10, 2022 at 1:17 PM

    Delightful post. We enjoyed vegetarian haggis when we spent time visiting our son when he did his jr. semester in Edinburgh.. Missing of course all your favorite parts. What do you like about the taste of offal?

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  2. SaachiMay 12, 2022 at 9:00 AM

    I come from a family of heavy meat and fish eaters, and I mean guts and all. Every time we had family lunches, I would see all of my extended family and friends munching on lamb liver, fish sacs, there would be some hearts in the mix, and of course fried brains. My own mind block would never let me eat these things, but recently I tried bone marrow and goat leg soup, and honestly it seems as though that was the first step in breaking my block down. I think taste is a powerful sense, in a way that it can change the way we look at certain items. Things that don't taste good to us, automatically embody some level of disgust, which to me seems a little unfortunate

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