Don't write me offal

Magical things can happen when you leave a comment on my blog. Things like me taking whatever you have suggested as a post and using my powers of thinking and typing and blabbing incessantly to turn in into a real life blog entry.

After yesterday’s loooong-winded explanation of how I arrived in a state of subweatherdom, Blake, my dear friend from Chicago, queried me on the subject of offal. Since I don’t recall ever hearing this word until I moved to the UK (even though it was my chef friend in the US who first said it to me), I feel it might be worth shedding some light on the subject.

First, an official definition: Offal is the entrails and internal organs of a butchered animal (thank you, Wikipedia), cooked and served as food. I don’t recall coming across it much in the States, but here in the UK, we leave no stomach, scrotum, foot, intestine, brain, lung or nose uncooked, unsavored and undigested (I’m not entirely sure that’s true, but I’m sure it set PETA’s web policing lights a-blinkin’).

London just so happens to be home to one of the world’s most famous offal restaurants, St. John, which also just so happens to be down the street from my house. So, I thought, what better time to patronize such a vomit-inducing establishment than when my parents and aunt and uncle are in town? I figured we all needed a bit of adventure in our lives and made reservations there for Friday night.

Now, I’m pretty much game (pun intended) for anything food-wise, but something about this list in a description of St. John—“pigs' ears, ducks' hearts, trotters, pigs' tails, bone marrow and, when in season, squirrel”—made my typically steel-like stomach turn. I mean, squirrel? Tell me: When are they not in season, because I see the nasty little critters running around the park by my work year-round.

Sensing a slight hesitation on the part of my stomach, I decided the morning of the dinner that I would not fall victim to my mind’s attempts to mess with my appetite for the weird. My culinary growth would not be stymied by organs. Mine or theirs.

So later, when I was seated next to my uncle John and my flatmate Jason, I took one look at the menu and set out to make my selections for the wackiest, weirdest foods on there. While others chose very clearly defined things like marrow and grouse for their starters, I chose the one word I didn’t know: kohlrabi. I imagined this exotic delicacy as something akin to the small intestine of a goat or the thymus of a goose.

For my main course, I decided to forgo the pheasant and pig trotter (foot) pie and the ox heart for something far more interesting: Fennel and Hexmouth (it wasn’t actually that but it sounded like that), because I didn’t know what Hexmouth was and I was determined to eat it no matter what bizarre animal part it yielded. Lips of a seal, testicles of a lion, didn’t matter to me. I was a woman on a mission.

Everyone at the table was suitably wowed by my sense of adventure. I refused to know a thing about what I was ordering…I would just take it guts and all because that’s was just the sort of adventurous eater I am.

So then the first course came.

I looked around at all of the delightfully nasty bits and pieces on people’s plates and then took a deep breath and bravely looked down at my own. And there on the plate, staring up at me in all it’s glory was…

….cabbage. No brains, feet, eyeballs, no animal part of any kind. Just plain old, albeit German, cabbage.

My uncle laughed hysterically, but I was flabbergasted. In my effort to be the ultimate carnivore, I had somehow managed to choose the only vegetarian plate on the menu? I was devastated, but the kohlrabi cabbage was quite tasty and I made sure to try everyone else’s meals, so I felt ok. Plus there was the entrée to redeem me….

….But wait! Had I done the same with the entrée??? In a panic, I called over the waiter and demanded an explanation for Hexmouth. “Madam,” he said, in a posh British accent. “Hexmouth is a wonderful artisanal cheese.”

NOOO!! Fortunately, I was quick enough in realizing my mistake that they could change the main course order to duck, but still….I couldn’t help but wonder, had my offal adventure become an awful failure? (that’s your Carrie Bradshaw fix for the day).

Anyway, fortunately, I had my duck and sampled everything else and even took the leftover peasant and pig trotter pie home with me, so all was not lost. Still from now on, I think I might stick to raw fish as the pinnacle of my culinary adventures.

Blake, I hope you’re satisfied.