You might know it as ‘variety meat,’ ‘pluck,’ or even the vaguely ominous ‘mystery meat.’ All these are terms synonymous with offal, any edible tissue derived from an animal that is not strictly skeletal muscle. Even reading about dishes made of blood, liver, ears, or heart is probably enough to trigger an automatic gag reflex in many people, and the fact that the word is pronounced ‘awful’ certainly doesn’t help. But for centuries, offal in countless shapes and forms has been an esteemed foodstuff in cultures and nations all around the world – not seen as something inferior or bizarre but valued in its own right for its culinary and nutritional qualities. And today, it seems that offal is finally making a resurgence, with many chefs, such as Fergus Henderson, the author of “The Whole Beast,” touting the merits of offal and striving to adopt a ‘nose-to-tail’ philosophy.
We’ve got an appetite for animals – no doubt about it. In 2018, Canadians consumed over 76 pounds of chicken, 40 pounds of beef, and 36 pounds of pork per capita. But think back to the last time you were in a grocery store, browsing the meat aisle. Shelves lined with a veritable bounty of cuts – neatly packaged and nearly uniform – the skinless chicken breasts, the tidy ribeyes, the pork loins trimmed into sleek bundles. Somewhere lurking in the back of our minds is the foggy knowledge that these foodstuffs weren’t spontaneously generated in these forms, that they were in fact excised from a whole animal. Ethical contentions aside, it’s glaringly obvious that there’s a whole slew of lesser-favored parts that are in no way inedible that simply never make it onto our supermarket shelves.
Try not to raise your eyebrows and grimace as I proclaim that offal is not at all awful. Those bits and pieces, odds and ends certainly deserve a place on our shelves and on our plates. In fact, you’ve probably consumed offal in many ways already, in the form of sausages, pate, and more. So why stop there? Paying more attention to the rest of the animal can certainly have delicious consequences; roast bones make for delicious stock, chicken feet add incredible body to broth, and pork fat can transform roast potatoes in some sort of brilliant culinary alchemy. And the nutritional profile of most offal certainly isn’t to be scoffed at. Organ meats are often rich in essential vitamins and nutrients such as vitamin A or iron and are some of the most concentrated food sources available. In addition, with the growing environmental and economic concerns with modern day farming and food production, it seems only logical to utilize the food we produce to the best of our ability.
And yet, what stands in our way is a mental and cultural block, one that deprives us of a culinary treasure trove. The term ‘variety meats’ is an accurate description – pig ears, with their delightfully cartilaginous crunch, duck gizzards, chewy and meaty, calves’ liver, tender with a slight minerally tang – the list goes on and on. And variety, despite the rows upon rows of gleaming supermarket shelves, is something that is sorely lacking in the modern North American diet. We cling to the familiar, our saran wrapped pink slabs of chicken with its comforting monotonous tenderness, and eschew the strange.
It’s time to move beyond ‘meat,’ and start considering the animal from nose to tail.
Written by: Nancy He; U4 Concurrent Food Science and Nutrition