“This is a local shop, for local people”

[IslandGirl_Becks]

2 minutes ago, Guzzi said:

black pudding! 

I had it for the first time on a UK trip with my mom... It's really hard to find in the US, because Americans tend to think that any non-chocolate pudding is weird! I'm hoping to be back at the end of this summer for a walking trip in Scotland... the plan is to have black pudding and scones for breakfast, walk all day, stop at regular intervals for whisky, and pub every evening!  

[Guzzi]

 

21 minutes ago, IslandGirl_Becks said:

I'm hoping to be back at the end of this summer for a walking trip in Scotland... the plan is to have black pudding and scones for breakfast, walk all day, stop at regular intervals for whisky, and pub every evening!  

 

Doooooo iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttt!   Where about are you planning on visiting? 

[IslandGirl_Becks]

1 hour ago, Guzzi said:

Where about are you planning on visiting? 

So, that's the rub. If I can get a full 2 weeks off in September, II'll probably spend a little time in a city or two. If I only have 1+ week, I'll be heading almost directly to to the route. I'm planning to walk the Speyside Way. I've been told it's not the most beautiful of the long distance walks, but I was digging around in my grandmother's family history (of which we don't know much) and discovered her grandfather emigrated from Dufftown.

[Guzzi]

I was digging around in my grandmother's family history (of which we don't know much) and discovered her grandfather emigrated from Dufftown.

Sorry. It just had to be done!

I’ve only passed through Dufftown once, but from what I remember it is very pretty. There’s a Facebook page called “Scotland from the Roadside” that you might want to check out, just because it’s full of lovely pictures from across the country. It could be a source of inspiration for if you do end up getting two weeks off. Personally (and yes, I’m biased!) I think the west coast is the prettiest.

[IslandGirl_Becks]

2 minutes ago, Guzzi said:

Personally (and yes, I’m biased!) I think the west coast is the prettiest. 

As a native west coaster from the next continent west, I totally get it West coast, best coast! 

Also, that group is pure travel porn. Yes, please!!

[Guzzi]

We have just had Stornaway black pudding, poached eggs and sassermeat for our lunch.  Sassermeat is a uniquely Shetland thing, kind of like a Scottish lorne sausage, but highly spiced. You don’t get it anywhere else in Britain.  Mind you I don’t think you even get lorne sausage south of the border either....

 

[Nomad Jay]

Since I haven't seen anyone talk about it yet, I'll talk about schnitzel. Schnitzel (German for "cutlet") refers to breaded, fried meat cutlet. Take a piece of meat, pound it flat, dredge and bread, then pan fry. If you top it with mushroom gravy it becomes jagerschnitzel ("hunter's schnitzel"). Wienerschnitzel ("Vienesse schnitzel") is schnitzel that uses a veal cutlet. Wienerschnitzel is the Germanic precursor to chicken-fried steak in central Texas* and other parts of the American south. Personally, I like my schnitzel sans gravy or sauce and served with fresh slice of lemon that you can then squeeze onto the dish.

 

In my home country of Texas, white gravy isn't quite bechamel but it is close. Traditional Texan recipes use bacon fat or lard instead of butter for the roux*** and water instead of milk, since dairy was in short supply in the early 19th century. If you've been extra good, the cook uses black coffee to thin out the roux and you've got red-eye gravy for your biscuits or the aforementioned chicken-fried steak.

 

Other things you might run across in Texas:

• Kolaches are a Czech pastry similar to a Danish, but more chewy and less flaky.
• A kolabznek is a pig-in-a-blanket using kolache dough
• Posole or pozole is a Mexican soup made with chicken and hominy, usually ladled over uncooked shredded cabbage.
• Chicharrónes are chunks of fried pork belly or pork rind, traditionally seasoned with chili powder. They're pretty messy to make so I usually only make them if I'm rendering out the fat from a fatty cut of pork.

 

*Fun fact: central Texas was settled by Germans and other Eastern Europeans at the invitation of the Spanish and later Mexican governments, partially as a shield against the Commanche. That's why New Braunfels is 30 miles from San Antonio and San Marcos is 56 miles from Pflugerville (pronounced flew-gur-vil)

**This cut roughly encompasses the topside, silverside, and thick flank for you Brits

***Any animal fat will do, really. Theoretically you can use beef fat, but I think it would be too strong for most traditional uses. I've yet to try duck fat, but I'm betting it would be delicious.

[Nomad Jay]

On 4/6/2019 at 6:37 AM, Guzzi said:

We have just had Stornaway black pudding, poached eggs and sassermeat for our lunch.  Sassermeat is a uniquely Shetland thing, kind of like a Scottish lorne sausage, but highly spiced. You don’t get it anywhere else in Britain.  Mind you I don’t think you even get lorne sausage south of the border either....

 

I've had black pudding before, but what is lorne sausage and sassermeat?

[Guzzi]

 
I've had black pudding before, but what is lorne sausage and sassermeat?

Lorne sausage is a traditional Scottish square sausage. Sausage meat, in this case a mixture of pork and beef, is minced with rusk and spices, packed into a rectangular tin with a cross-section of about 10 cm square, and sliced about 1 cm thick before cooking. Square sausage has no casing, unlike traditional sausages, and must be tightly packed into the mould to hold it together; slices are often not truly square.

Sassermeat is basically a Shetland version. I think it’s just beef, no pork, and it has more spices in it than lorne sausage.

[Guzzi]

Hi common is organ meat and such in the places you guys hail from?  I would say that it’s more common in shops in Shetland than it back home on the west coast.  I’m always slightly grossed out by the packaged ox tongue that our butcher sells, and they’re always there so they must sell quite a lot.  Liver and kidney are also very common but I’ve also seen sheep’s heart for sale in the butcher, and I can’t even imagine what people are cooking using them!  Making their own haggis maybe....? 

[Nomad Jay]

Put simply, consumption of organ meat is regionally dependent in the US*. For example, kosher and halal butchers won't carry organ meat due to religious prohibitions about consumption of blood and meat with blood still in it. On the other hand, a lot of chain markets in the US carry packages of chicken giblets. I can only speak for regions I've lived in but I've traveled a fair bit and lived a lot of places and I've got a good bit of caffeine in me so here goes.

 

Commercial organ meat in the US comes from larger mammals (cattle, pigs, sheep), turkey, and chicken. While you can farm/ranch alligators, I've never seen alligator organs for sale in a brick-and-mortar store in the US. I'm excluding wild-caught animals from this discussion because only about 4.3% of the eligible US population (11.5 million out of 269.7 million) hunts every year so it's not really representative of the population at large. However, judging by anecdata, hunters consume more organ meat than non-hunters.

 

Packages of chicken giblets (lungs, kidneys, heart, liver), chicken hearts, or chicken livers are pretty easy to find in the American Deep South. They become more rare as you move west or north. For example, in Texas and Georgia I could find giblets on the shelf next to whole or cut-up chickens. In Tennesse and Missouri I could find whole chickens with giblets included but not giblets by themselves. In Montana it's nearly impossible to find chicken giblets unless you specifically ask a butcher or a meat counter to reserve them for you when they slice up the chickens for packaging. Oddly enough, whole turkeys generally come with giblets but we only usually cook turkey at home once or twice a year and I suspect the giblets get discarded most of the time. When I can find whole duck at a US market it generally doesn't have the giblets included, but they do give you an utterly disgusting package of pre-mixed, over-salted orange sauce, so a big shout-out to the hack who thought that one up. Personally I like giblets best as gravy: sauté and use the renderings/fond/bits-in-the-bottom-of-the-pan as the basis for the roux. It's delicious and I find most people really like so long as I don't mention to them what they're eating. In Louisiana, chicken liver is diced up, seasoned, sauteed, and added to white rice to make something called dirty rice. Personally I don't care for it (it's got a weird texture) but I have relatives who love it. I do know some folks who deep fry chicken livers but I've never eaten a fried chicken liver.

 

In areas with high(er) Mexican populations I see tripe (edible stomach lining**) pretty easily. Mexicans make tripe into stew called menudo, which is the world's greatest hangover cure. Aside from tripe, I don't find organ meat from larger mammals in most chain markets but decent butchers will have usually have some reserved. Heart is basically entirely lean muscle so it takes well to hot, dry, fast cooking. If I can get sufficient quantities I make it into fajitas. I've never eaten tongue and I'm not terribly fond of liver on its own. I've only seen these in one or two specific stores that weren't dedicated butcher shops.

 

I mentioned chicharrones in my earlier post. Those are usually found in the American Deep South and places with higher concentrations of Hispanics. They're an excellent beer snack. If you find a bar that serves these (the real kind, not the vegetarian version), stick around. I've generally found those to be very interesting and entertaining places.

 

There's also something called "scrapple" in the Northern US. Traditionally it's made from the pig and uses "everything but the oink". From what I've read it's, similar to blood sausage and is supposedly popular in the Mid-Atlantic states but I've been to Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland and never found anywhere that sold or served it.

 

While it's not strictly organ meat, I have noticed that finding cheek meat in the US is next-to-impossible pretty difficult. From what I gather this has to do with both butchery methods in the US. The Food and Drug Administration, the US agency that regulates stuff we can consume, has decreed that bolt-gun butchery renders cheek meat unfit for sale. I find this both 1) completely stupid and 2) a real shame because cheek meat makes some of the best taco filling I've ever had the pleasure of consuming. When I lived in Europe (I say this in the least pretentious manner possible) it was pretty easy to find cheek meat at both at the butcher and at chain markets. Pretty much the only way to get cheek meat in the US is to kill the animal and butcher the animal yourself. EDIT: Tanktimus pointed out that Mexican meat markets often carry it. I'm assuming they're getting it from kosher butchers?

 

And of course, no discussion of organ meat in the US is complete without Rocky Mountain Oysters. Also known as prairie oysters or huveos del toro, these are peeled, battered, deep-fried cow testicles.*** Yes, really. Personally, I've never eaten one. The folks I know who have eaten one did it mostly out of curiosity, novelty value, or look-how-bold-I-am-machismo. On the other hand, I know of two or three towns that have annual Rocky Mountain Oyster festivals. I expect there's only so much novelty value one  derives from eating these, so there's probably people who really do enjoy the flavor and texture of the dish.

 

If you're still reading at this point, you really aren't bored aren't you? Overall I think there's a pretty big "ick" factor for most Americans when it comes to organ meat. On the other hand, it keeps the prices of this stuff pretty low so when I do find it, I can afford to stock up and make myself something delicious.

 

*Expanding a bit, it's tied to culture, history, ethnicity, and socio-economic class. That discussion has the potential to be radioactive, and possibly go critical, so suffice it to say consumption of organ meat is more widespread in historically-impoverished groups.

** Yes. Really.

*** Yes. Really. Again.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

1 hour ago, Nomad Jay said:

In areas with high(er) Mexican populations I see tripe (edible stomach lining**) pretty easily. Mexicans make tripe into something called a stew called menudo, which is the world's greatest hangover cure. Aside from tripe, I don't find organ meat from larger mammals in most chain markets but decent butchers will have usually have some reserved. Heart is basically entirely lean muscle so it takes well to hot, dry, fast cooking. If I can get sufficient quantities I make it into fajitas. I've never eaten tongue and I'm not terribly fond of liver on its own. I've only seen these in one or two specific stores that weren't dedicated butcher shops.

This threw me, because in Spanish "Tripas" refers to intestines, which are used to make tacos.***** The stomach lining is used for menudo, and it's called "Pansas." A meat market that sells it in San Antonio will probably be run by people whose primary language is Spanish, so going in to a Meat Market and asking for tripe could lead to some translation issues and you may walk out of there with intestines. Fajita is technically the word in Spanish for a skirt steak on a cow, and not the way something is cooked, though most of the US and a lot of white people here in San Antonio don't follow that convention. 

 

1 hour ago, Nomad Jay said:

While it's not strictly organ meat, I have noticed that finding cheek meat in the US is next-to-impossible. From what I gather this has to do with both butchery methods in the US. The Food and Drug Administration, the US agency that regulates stuff we can consume, has decreed that bolt-gun butchery renders cheek meat unfit for sale. I find this both 1) completely stupid and 2) a real shame because cheek meat makes some of the best taco filling I've ever had the pleasure of consuming.

Again, in San Antonio you can find cheek meat in Mexican Meat markets, but finding them cooked and ready to be put into tacos is far easier. Saturday Barbacoa is a big tradition on the South Side of San Antonio, and the most socially acceptable drink therewith is Big Red. http://www.bigred.com/ (Also a regional thing)

 

Also, since you opened the door to Germanic Influences in Texas, the musical style Conjunto is a part of Tejano music, and is derived from German Ranchers and Mexican Vaqueros sharing musical traditions. 

 

*****Really really.

[Nomad Jay]

6 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

This threw me, because in Spanish "Tripas" refers to intestines, which are used to make tacos.***** The stomach lining is used for menudo, and it's called "Pansas." A meat market that sells it in San Antonio will probably be run by people whose primary language is Spanish, so going in to a Meat Market and asking for tripe could lead to some translation issues and you may walk out of there with intestines.

Yeah, "tripe" and "tripas" aren't true cognates. I've always seen tripe labeled in English so that's how I refer to it. I know just enough Spanish to get myself thrown into jail, but not enough to talk my way out, so I usually just point and say "Este, por favor."

 

6 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Again, in San Antonio you can find cheek meat in Mexican Meat markets, but finding them cooked and ready to be put into tacos is far easier. Saturday Barbacoa is a big tradition on the South Side of San Antonio, and the most socially acceptable drink therewith is Big Red. http://www.bigred.com/ (Also a regional thing) 

Mea culpa, next-to-impossible was hyperbole. I ate a lot of barbacoa when I lived in San Antonio, though I didn't know it was cheek meat at the time. I miss barbacoa. And getting tamales at Christmas. And, oh man, I'd almost forgotten about Big Red until you brought it up. Dang it, now I'm hungry.

[Guzzi]

Saturday Barbacoa is a big tradition on the South Side of San Antonio, and the most socially acceptable drink therewith is Big Red. http://www.bigred.com/ (Also a regional thing)

Scotland is reported to be the only country in the world where Coca Cola is sold that Coke isn’t the no.1 selling soft drink. That spot is taken by Irn Bru.

[Guzzi]

On that subject, irn bru has the best Christmas advert  

 

 

 

And the sequel....

 

 

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

18 hours ago, Nomad Jay said:

Mea culpa, next-to-impossible was hyperbole. I ate a lot of barbacoa when I lived in San Antonio, though I didn't know it was cheek meat at the time. I miss barbacoa. And getting tamales at Christmas. And, oh man, I'd almost forgotten about Big Red until you brought it up. Dang it, now I'm hungry.

Yeah, I tend to do that to people on here.

[The Battle Chef]

Poutine rappe (don't know how to make accents on this forum)

Bits of ground meat (usually pork) encased in grated potato and boiled like a dumpling

 

Fricot

Overhyped chicken soup with dumplings that old people will fight you to the death over.

 

Dulse

Purple seaweed, snacked on or crumbled as a seasoning

 

Fiddleheads

Shoots of the fern plant that grow in nasty-ass swamp holes that old people will fight you to the death over.

 

 

[The Battle Chef]

As far as organ meat goes, liver is common in the major grocery stores, fresh and frozen.  Occasionally I'll see kidney, tongue or heart, typically beef.  Smaller butcher shops can usually get it for you easily.  Cow tongue is amazingly delicious.

[Guzzi]

9 hours ago, Rusk said:

Poutine rappe (don't know how to make accents on this forum)

Bits of ground meat (usually pork) encased in grated potato and boiled like a dumpling

 

Fricot

Overhyped chicken soup with dumplings that old people will fight you to the death over.

 

Hahaha!  Now I want to try this soup!  

 

9 hours ago, Rusk said:

Dulse

Purple seaweed, snacked on or crumbled as a seasoning

 

Fiddleheads

Shoots of the fern plant that grow in nasty-ass swamp holes that old people will fight you to the death over.

 

What is it with the old people in your country!  

[The Battle Chef]

47 minutes ago, Guzzi said:

 

Hahaha!  Now I want to try this soup!  

 

 

What is it with the old people in your country!  

51% of my province is aged 65 years or older.  They dislike change.

[Nomad Jay]

Update: I found frozen beef cheek at a newly-opened grocery store. Said store also carries tripe, chicken feet, and other non-standard cuts. They shall have my custom for as long as they stock such things.