My brother came back from Tennessee with this little can of “Pork Brains” that he bought as a gag. Is this truly a just a gag, or is the “Brains and Eggs” recipe on the side of the can real? The can looks perfectly real, complete with the recipe and USDA specs (1170% of your daily cholesterol).
Has anybody out there had a taste?
I’m pretty sure they are probably real. I lived in Tennessee for a while and I all I know is that they eat some pretty weird things down there!
It’s for real. My dad used to eat brains and eggs.
Have no idea what they taste like.
– Greg, Atlanta
Just to clarify, I remembered the recipe was actually “Scrambled Eggs and Brains”. And I also wanted to mention that there was definitely something solid in the can, suspended in liquid, not just an empty can. Needless to say, I’m not about to spill my brother’s brains…
Go to page three of this SDMB topic.
Thanks, Beer, thats the exact same can he bought. I was thinking maybe they just sold it to the tourists, though, rather than someone actually eating them…
Here’s a direct link to the full label:
http://www.relax.ltc.vanderbilt.edu/~carolyn/photos/pork.html
I’ve had them a number of times, but it was a long time ago.
I don’t remember much about the taste, but I wouldn’t have repeated it if they had been bad. But then again, I also like chitlins.
The eggs are for moistening the brains, because they can be pretty dry when you’re scrambling them.
There would definitely be some regional factors as to the availability of canned pork brains in your local grocery, but I don’t doubt that they are for real. Pork brains are certainly a food that some people eat and, apparently, enjoy, so it only stands to reason that there’s a company out there that produces and markets it. I have never seen canned brains (I live in the northeast, which would not be a very prime market), but I attended a pig roast once where the brain was available for consumption. I suspect that in this case it appealed primarily to half-or-more drunken macho types who wanted to show just how primitive and manly they were; at least that was clearly true of the ones who spoke to me about it, with much swaggering and bravado (and a distinct shortage of hygiene, if I may add a totally irrelevant observation). In the interest of science, and believeing that one can’t have a qualified opinion without first-hand knowledge, I tried a bite. It was, in my opinion, exactly what you would expect brains to be like. They were an off-white color and had a very mushy, sort of grainy texture, like extremely soft oysters. The flavor also reminded me faintly of oysters, which I do not care for, but I can’t say it tasted “like” anything else in particular. It did not incline me to take a second bite.
Revolting as this sounds to most people, one’s ideas of what constitutes a delicacy is clearly a product mainly of upbringing and conditioning. A trip through any grocery store will turn up a whole basketful of things that I would eat only under starvation conditions, or with a flamethrower pointed at me (head cheese, tripe, and tongue come to mind as easy and common examples), but someone (often more elderly and/or from a different ethnic background) obviously seeks them out and buys them to eat voluntarily. If there’s no market, you wouldn’t see them there.
So, did you try the canned brains? It is about lunch time…
The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go.
Sorry, Michigan is still Eastern Standard, so it’s almost 1 P.M. here now.
Besides, as I pointed out, eating my brother’s brains just wouldn’t be right, and I honestly have absolutely no ambition to try them.
Several years back, a humor columnist for Discover magazine set out to find out how much he could raise his cholesterol level in a single week (okay, science humor can be a little strange). In this endeavor, he went for the pinacle of cholesterol bearing food and ate calf brains for breakfast every day. Like the philosopher said, “Dying’s easy. Comedy’s hard.”
My mother, sister and I took a road trip through the Deep South in the late '80s. At one tiny diner, we found the daily breakfast special was indeed pork brains—and they were ALL OUT (we found this especially disturbing).
Once my mother offered me some tongue sandwich she was eating. “No, thank you,” I said, “I could never eat anything that had been in a cow’s mouth.”
“OK,” she answered. “You want some eggs?”
The Really Scary part about the brains in a can is that it is actually in the shape of a brain - it’s not mushed or chopped or diced or processed in any way, just a little brain in some sort of packing liquid. (That statement is 100% hearsay - I’ve never seen them firsthand, but I heard it discussed by some older ladies in a beauty shop not long ago.) My grandmother used to cook brains and eggs for breakfast, but mercifully that was when I was too young to remember, and I was exempted from it because I have a serious egg aversion.
Take my advice, or I’ll spank you without pants.
Well, to add to the digestive trauma, back home in NC, squirrel brains & eggs was a valid way to start the day. A butcher in Carrboro advertised 'em on his marquee as recently as '88. Urrrggg, no wonder I’m a vegetarian!
Thanks to Calvin Schwabe’s Unmentionable Cuisine for the following;
Cervelle a la romaine
Soak calf’s brains in ice water for four hours, then remove the membranes and blood clots (I’m getting hungry already). Slice the brains and marinate them in a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and chopped parsley. Dip the slices in lightly beaten eggs, then fine bread crumbs. Fry them in several inches of hot oil and drain.
Arrange the fried slices in a ring. Garnish each slice with a rolled anchovy fillet and sprinkle them with lightly browned butter. Fill in the middle with cooked buttered spinach.
Available on request, I also have recipes for brain croquettes, fried brain cakes, brains in lemon sauce, brain dumplings, brain soup, and of course lamb brain tacos.
Well, this whole thread justifies my firm belief that brains for breakfast would totally ruin my cholesterol regime. I don’t actually have one, but it’ll do for an excuse.
In truth I did eat calf brains once in accordance with my actual “try before you hate” regime. IIRC, it didn’t taste much of anything but it was hard to choke down even for politeness. (It was a tony version so I couldn’t even ask for a lashings of hot sauce to slosh on.)
Pork brains and eggs? Uh, this may be serendipitous, but anyone notice that the “Dopers rate the worst foods” thread just resurfaced? This one’d be a real contender.
Craving sprouts,
Veb
Been dipping into our “Borscht Belt Jokebook,” have we?
Haven’t any of you guys read “Hannibal” yet?
Why doesn’t some company that manufactures—well, cans—brains make a TV commercial with “Night of the Living Dead” zombies eating their product and going, “mmmm . . . brains . . .”
It is a venerable tradition in Missoula, Montana, after the bars close at 2 a.m., to go down to the Oxford Cafe (“the Ox”) and have brains and eggs. Big plates of 'em. Standing room only, and they frequently run out.
I never tried them, though. Why be a slave to conformity?
Jodi
Fiat Justitia