Voyager
February 6, 2013, 10:34pm
21
Exapno_Mapcase:
Chopped liver is not historically beef liver; it’s chicken liver*.
But entrails were not “nice” food, the kind you served guests or on special occasions. Chopped liver was a nosh, a side dish, an extender, something not quite first rate. That’s the meaning of the Adams quote and the Durante quote. If you have to ask if you’re being treated as chopped liver, then you’ve been ignored or slighted.
Chopped (chicken) liver was a standard part of the post-Friday night services spread at my shul. It can be cooked well ahead, and can go with dairy, unlike beef liver. So the chopped liver in the expression is definitely chicken. I heard it in the late 1950s for sure, but I’m not surprised that much earlier cites have been given. It was an expression my grandparents were comfortable with.
DSeid
September 26, 2023, 2:13pm
22
Or we can goose up the history…Chopped Liver – Flavors of Diaspora .
The history of chopped liver is quite interesting. The dish originates in the Middle Ages with goose liver – which was often consumed as a byproduct of rendering schmaltz (fat, traditionally from poultry). Though preparing liver to be kosher requires salting and broiling to eliminate blood , Jews quickly developed a taste for the rich organ. A preparation of liver chopped with onions and salt quickly became popular in medieval and early modern Jewish communities, and spread in two directions. One was into France, where it became foie gras. (Yes, it has a Jewish origin !) The other was to Eastern European Jewish communities, where the dish became popular with calf and chicken livers. Eggs and more onions were added, usually to stretch the costly and strongly flavored liver.