# Bad or good, share your experiences eating internal organs. (No Hannibal Lechters) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 29, 2006, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416 "2006-03-29T16:25:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Idlewild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8491ac/32.png) [@Idlewild](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idlewild)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/41 "2006-03-30T04:05:37Z")
I love steak and kidney puddin’, and devilled kidneys, I could really go a liver, onion and bacon the way mum used to make it, chicken livers were my dearest companion, oh the cheap pate with brandy I made, and dirty rice of course. And now I’m tenderly coaxing a former vegetarian into trying dark muscle meat from chicken instead of light so there’ll be no organ meat in this household. Sigh. Mum never made us try tripe or brains or anything exotic though. Just the cheap standbys of kidneys and livers of various beasts. I tell you what, learning to cut up a liver’ll cure squeamishness about where your meat comes from and what it really is - or it’ll make you a vegetarian. One or the other! ---
**Author:** ![Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnac_the_Magnificent)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/42 "2006-03-30T04:06:52Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I had grown to be the same age as Jesus was crucified at without ever having actually eaten chitlins. It was a source of pride: I knew people who ate everything from chitlins to possum to blackbirds, but our family was above that branch of the Bible Belt bottomfeeders, but now I had tried chitlins, the forbidden meat. I felt like Thyestes when he learned he had consumed the flesh of his own children, but worse, because Thyestes just ate some Greek kids who probably were stuffed in grape leaves and sprinkled with olive oil, BUT I’D EATEN FRIGGIN’ CHITLINS!!! This one paragraph sounds like vintage Lewis Grizzard. **Sampiro** , if Grizzard can knock out a dozen books, you can handle one. Put your blackbird casserole down and start writing! ---
**Author:** ![Sierra\_Indigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sierra\_Indigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sierra_Indigo)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/43 "2006-03-30T04:21:43Z")
I don’t like liver and kidneys. The texture is what gets me. It tastes/feels like filtering. But I do love me some bone marrow, much to hubby’s disgust. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/44 "2006-03-30T14:33:28Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Fromage de tête - (apparently pig’s face in aspic) not nice. Headcheese? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/45 "2006-03-30T15:05:22Z")
This doesn’t really count as “internal organs,” but I once tried head cheese in a German resaurant. Not disgusting, but all those bits of pigs’ ears and snouts are really tough to chew. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/46 "2006-03-30T15:51:55Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Growing up in ultra rural Alabama to a Depression era rural born mother I ate a lot of food that you can’t find in most restaurants including fried fatback. For those who’ve never tried it, it tastes like a cross between bacon, ham and chicken (though only about half of it is edible). According to this – [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatback](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatback) – fatback is the same thing as what Ukrainians call _salo._ IOW, lard. Which Ukrainians eat as an entree. (See this thread: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=294802](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=294802)) But even the Ukrainians don’t **fry** it! Fried lard?! My arteries harden just imagining it! > [@Sampiro](#): > > So… I ate the forbidden chitlin and left their naked in fig leaves, but… at least they weren’t “purist chitlins” (and if you don’t know what that means, be glad). I believe that means, chitlins that have been prepared without first cleaning them, so you are also eating the remnants of the pig’s last meal? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/47 "2006-03-30T18:44:30Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I believe that means, chitlins that have been prepared without first cleaning them, so you are also eating the remnants of the pig’s last meal? Yup. And there are people who eat them that way. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/48 "2006-03-30T19:11:22Z")
I lived in Ecuador for two years back in the early 90s. While Ecuador is a far, far cry from being as poor as, say, Bangladesh, it isn’t a place where they let a whole lot go to waste. Among the strange (to my Asian-American palate) animals and parts I sampled: **Bull testicles** These were really, really awful. I ate them boiled in soup, where their already mushy consistency was only enhanced, and…shit, they were gross. **Cow hoof** This was food for the poorest of the poor. I was given a bowl of broth with a whole hoof in it. I was expected to eat the tiny bits of meat around the ankle (after picking the remaining hair off), _then cut up and eat the hoof itself, which had been softened through long cooking._ **Bull penis** Affectionately nicknamed _tronquito de toro_ “little bull’s trunk,” this was mercifully diced into soup most of the times I was served it. However, there was one time I was given a large plate of white rice with a nine inch, veiny, bull’s dong on it. **Tripe** This is the stomach lining of a cow. If you’ve had the Mexican soup called _menudo_, you’ve had this. It’s really tough and cartilaginous in texture, but aside from that it doesn’t have much flavor of its own. **Udder** This one was the worst. The worst thing about organ meats versus muscle meats, to me at least, is always the texture. Udder has a taste and texture somewhere between really tough steak and cheddar cheese. Ick. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/49 "2006-03-30T19:14:43Z")
With the exception of kidneys and chitterlings, I’ve never been too put off by organ meats. In the case of the kidneys, I’m willing to stipulate that they might have been improperly prepared the one time I had them. I just can’t get past the smell of boiling pigshit that roils off of chitterlings and haven’t ever eaten them. Otherwise, I’ve consumed hearts, tongues, brains, sweetbreads, headmeat, etc. with gusto. Especially when I lived in Laredo TX, guts, skin, and other meat by-products were a major feature in the local cuisine. I love pork-skin tacos! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/50 "2006-03-30T20:02:08Z")
> [@cactus waltz](#): > > I’m a vegetarian, but I tried out haggis in my omnivore youth. It wasn’t that bad, to be honest. It just doesn’t look very appetizing. BTW, why did Robert Burns call haggis “Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race”? Isn’t haggis really a sausage? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/51 "2006-03-30T20:03:24Z")
One of my favorite ever overheard items happened in a grocery store a few years ago. I ran into “Miss Maude”, a former schoolteacher who had since retired and was the type of sweet Aunt Clara type lil’ ol’ ladies who has nothing of interest to say but doesn’t let that stop them from talking forever and ever to anybody who’s too polite to walk away. She was also the type who can put the LOL in Little Old Lady, but never intentionally. We were at the meat counter in the grocery store and she was blathering on and on sweetly and boringly about her petunias or some such and I smiled and nodded and tried to name all of the presidents in reverse chronological order in my mind to seem interested when a lady came up, looked in Ms. Maude’s basket and said “Excuse me, ma’am, but I notice you’re buying kidneys… I’ve never bought those but they’re so cheap I probley should get some. Could you tell me how you fix them?” Miss Maude: “Well, dear, I just boil them in some water with some salt and pepper and seasonings and then leave them to cool on some paper towels and then when they’re cool enough to touch I tear 'em into small chunks.” Woman: Hmmm. Do they taste okay? Miss Maude: Well, I don’t eat 'em personally, but I don’t like red meat [insert long story about why she doesn’t eat red meat here], but Sam and Lou and Ray and Josie eat 'em like there’s no tomorrow! Woman: Hmmm. Well, it’s less than a dollar, I’ll get some and try that. Thanks! Miss Maude continued talking about her petunias or whatever, then when the woman was long out of earshot she cocked her head and asked, completely innocently and seriously, “Do you suppose I should have told that lady that I only cook kidneys for my cats?” ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/52 "2006-03-30T21:52:44Z")
**BrainGlutton** , if the kidneys in your pie had an overpowering taste, then something was wrong. You normally can barely taste them, they add more to the texture than anything else. I didn’t know what suet was until reading this thread. I normally make dumplings out of it. I’ve had: Calf and lamb liver Cow’s tongue (used to have it on sandwiches at school) Kidneys Suet in dumplings Haggis Black pudding Pate A lot of the meats mentioned in this thread were popular with the older generations. I still remember my mum regularly buying tripe for my grandma (you hardly see it these days), who was also apparently skilled at picking the meat off a pig’s trotter. ---
**Author:** ![Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnac_the_Magnificent)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/53 "2006-03-30T22:00:55Z")
> [@OneCentStamp](#): > > I lived in Ecuador for two years back in the early 90s… > > **Bull penis** > Affectionately nicknamed _tronquito de toro_ “little bull’s trunk,” this was mercifully diced into soup most of the times I was served it. However, there was one time I was given a large plate of white rice with a nine inch, veiny, bull’s dong on it. I think you just set a new record on the Ick Meter. Before I would have set fork to dong, I would have nuked the entire country from orbit. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/54 "2006-03-31T11:53:01Z")
> [@Dominic Mulligan](#): > > **BrainGlutton** , if the kidneys in your pie had an overpowering taste, then something was wrong. You normally can barely taste them, they add more to the texture than anything else. > > I didn’t know what suet was until reading this thread. I normally make dumplings out of it. > > I’ve had: > > Calf and lamb liver > Cow’s tongue (used to have it on sandwiches at school) > Kidneys > Suet in dumplings > Haggis > Black pudding > Pate > > A lot of the meats mentioned in this thread were popular with the older generations. I still remember my mum regularly buying tripe for my grandma (you hardly see it these days), who was also apparently skilled at picking the meat off a pig’s trotter. All of those plus pig’s liver and sheep’s heart. Pig’s liver is best braised with bacon, whereas lamb’s liver is milder flavoured and more tender, and should be lightly fried (it should be _just_ firm and losing its pinkness all through. Any more and it’s overdone). I’m not wild about tongue but it doesn’t squick me out. Black pudding and haggis I would both eat every day with no qualms at all. Really it’s amazing what you can eat with fava beans and a light chianti. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/55 "2006-03-31T13:27:33Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Really it’s amazing what you can eat with fava beans and a light chianti. 😃 Fava beans! **ICK!** ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/56 "2006-03-31T15:29:59Z")
What about when you consume the entire organism? When you eat softshell crabs, you are eating legs, eyes, guts, gonads, assholes and everything for example. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/57 "2006-03-31T15:38:32Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Fava beans! **ICK!** With a name like yours, you gag at fava beans? ::incredulous:: 😃 ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/58 "2006-03-31T15:40:34Z")
Mmmmm, insides! I love sweetbreads, my wife and I found a local restaurant that does a pretty good job with them. It’s funny, though, that when you order them the waitress says “You do know what sweetbreads are, right?” Braunschweiger on pumpernickel with a slice of Vidalia onion, good stuff. Foie gras is a nice treat to have once or twice a year. Had menudo in Denver last summer, not bad but not great. I ate some pig brains on a dare at a pig roast once. Pickled turkey gizzards, I used to have a big jar of them in my dorm room. Good snacks with beer. I used to eat deer liver and heart before CWD, shame about that. I’m sure there are more variations that I’ve had, but it’s all I can think of right now. ---
**Author:** ![Bomzaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@Bomzaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bomzaway)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/59 "2006-03-31T16:00:51Z")
I’ve always loved chicken hearts, but in San Francisco’s Chinatown, you can get a little to-go box of them in a teriyaki-like sauce and just walk around enjoying the sights, eating your hearts out of a box. Heavenly. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416/60 "2006-04-01T02:52:55Z")
I haven’t had liver for decades, but it’s okay if it isn’t overdone, tough and dry. I’ve had steak and kidney pie a handful of times. IIRC the steak predominated. Either I’ve been lucky and always gotten the few good ones, or the people who’ve gotten bad ones are unlucky. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-or-good-share-your-experiences-eating-internal-organs-no-hannibal-lechters/350416.md?page=4)