Definition:

The organs inside an animal, such as the brain, heart, or liver, eaten as food.  [REF] 

Deconstruction:

Summed up in a single statement, offal is a colloquial name for edible creature innards.

There aren’t many words outside the onomatopoeia realm where the verbiage, pronunciation, and definition are perfectly aligned with the term itself.  Offal certainly fits the bill.  Just researching this topic in depth is off putting.

While anecdotal, the term’s origin is loosely based on similarly sounding and spelled “off-fall”, a literal description for the undesirable portions of the carcass butchers of yore let drop to the floor while executing their dirty job.  Though not completely accurate, the Middle Dutch terms “af” and “vallen”, corroborate this theory from both a guttural and gesture standpoint.

The “off” prefix can easily be tied to various other common descriptors for these ugly, smelly, unsightly, sloppy innards.  Not to mention the terrible taste itself.

This verbiage of useless waste is in stark contrast to the experience of ancient civilizations.  In fact, it’s likely the historical moniker for these highly desirable innards was much more favorable than the modern offensive term.

There’s lots of folklore legends regarding the powers instilled by eating various discrete parts of an animal: heart for love, brains for wisdom, lungs for courage.  Not to mention eyeballs for sight, feet for speed, and testicles for libido.  Imagine a dystopian version of The Wizard of Oz.

There’s only one, or a pair, of these novel organs per critter, if a tribe was lucky enough to bring the targeted beast down.  Thus, in the olden times, such rare and perishable pieces were the heavily prized, and reserved for the highest-ranking folks in the community.

While external muscle meat is simply utilized for corporal propulsion activities, internal organs execute critical functions that keep the body operational.  As such, these swatches of tissue are very high in a variety of essential nutrients concentrated through the natural filtration processes.

Let’s do a deep dive into the realm of offal, from location to usage to taste.

The liver is the largest internal organ by mass in the human body, as well as many other mammals.  This component is a key part of the digestive system, primarily responsible for storing iron.  The integrated filtering system results in a grainy and potent, understandably metallic, flavor profile.

Liver is one of the few offal varieties readily available at butcher counters worldwide.  Highly nutritious, a single serving has enough vitamin A to satisfy a person’s need for an entire week.  Also prevalent are high amounts of vitamin B and folic acid, the latter being especially important for fetus development in pregnant women.

As with many types of meat, the larger the animal, the more robust the flavor, with beef, pork, and chicken all offering up unique flavor profiles.  Chopped liver and onions is a common western meal, especially amongst Jewish families.  Successful execution relies on fine cutting techniques, long cooking time, and powerful flavor additions, to make a palatable, albeit still polarizing, dish.

The important heart, center of the circulatory system, straddles the line between a muscle and an organ.  However, from a culinary standpoint, this unit falls decidedly in the offal camp, due to the tissue’s internal placement and pumping activity.

Heart meat is surprisingly tender in texture and mild in flavor; the slightly gamey taste can be mitigated via braising or grilling techniques.  This organ contains substantial protein and vitamin B, but the true health benefit is the high concentration of antioxidant coenzyme Q10, which promotes cellular energy production.

The kidney serves all manner of filtering functions in the urinary system, removing waste water from the blood stream, and managing electrolyte balance.  While not an appetizing role, this offal option is considered less polarizing than liver from a palate standpoint, if prepared correctly to remove residual acidity.

As a result of its important cleansing role, kidneys are packed with vitamin B12, riboflavin, and selenium, making this organ a powerful addition to a healthy meal.  Lamb kidney, with a delicate flavor and texture, represents a good entry point to this novel type of cuisine.

Sweetbreads are the pancreas or thymus of an animal, part of the stomach and throat respectively, rather than the brain matter itself, for which they are often misconstrued due to visual similarity.  Often these organs, as with muscles, are more tender and toothsome on young animals, like veal or lamb.  Also rich in protein, the silky and creamy texture when sauteed or fried make sweetbreads a delicacy, with common usage in French gastronomy.

Like the heart, the tongue is technically a muscle, but the distinctive recognizable look, and dense tissue composition, make this a unique cut.   When the intravenous fat and connective tissue is broken down through slow cooking, a fork-tender and flavor-laden protein results, packed with iron and zinc.  Any culture that values mammal meats have found the tongue to be a treasured piece of the animal, and staple of their diet.

Consuming offal is not just a novelty play, but also beneficial from a sustainability standpoint.

Roughly 45% of a slaughtered cow’s total weight is prime muscle cuts, the offerings developed Westerner’s crave for burgers, steaks, and roasts.  After discarding an another 40% of inedible hide and hooves, used for leather and glue respectively, there remains a lost 15% of the total mass. 

These hidden innards and entrails are collectively dubbed the offal.  Sure, all the intestines aren’t appetizing, or even safely consumable, but this is still a substantial protein source that can be repurposed.

It’s important that offal is cleaned and cooked correctly.  However, such preparation is a lost art in this era of grocery store butchering and bundled food parcels.  Most internal organs benefit from a lengthy soak in cold milk or water, to remove any residual bodily fluids and mellow the strong natural flavors.

Offal spoils more quickly than muscle meat, due to the different metabolic processes that occur after death.  Even when refrigerated, muscles continue breaking down, creating stabilizing acids, while organs remain raw, delicate, and perishable.

There are some risks with preparing and cooking organs which have arisen over time: mad cow disease hidden in brain matter, avian flu cross-contamination with porous lung tissue, bacterial food poisoning from liver contents.  However, transmission of these afflictions to humans is rare.

Sale of lungs is currently banned in the United States, due to a study that found a variety of airborne impurities absorbed in the alveoli.  Considering the feeble feed, cramped conditions, and sloppy slaughtering at most conglomerate livestock dispensing operations these days, restricting commerce of free-range, ethically-butchered, organs seems like a sanitary contradiction.

As with most elements of American culture, another reason for the limited distribution of offal is government regulation.  The FDA, in its infinite wisdom, has enacted so many rules regarding the processing of animals, that it’s easier to ship the innards overseas, or even discard them, rather than risk sale to the general public domestically.  While clearly keeping the greater good in mind, such administrative stringency has hindered the availability of tissue meat.

In many cases, excess offal from butchering is now repurposed for pet food, which has caused myriad other health issues and political backlash.  However, this is a valuable organic product that would otherwise be headed to landfill.

Offal accounts for over 20% of beef and 30% of veal exports to other countries worldwide, despite Americans prolific appetite for protein.  Apparently, citizens of the U.S. prefer sirloin and ribs on their barbeque grills, as opposed to oxtail and tongue.

Globally, consumption of offal makes up a substantially larger portion of nourishment intake than in the United States.  This current societal fastidiousness was not always the case.  Americans have a long and varied past with regards to organs as part of their daily diet.

Tracing back to the continent’s original inhabitants, the Native Americans who roamed the woods and plains utilized every element of any living creature they brought down, not just as sustenance, but also to make functional products.  Lungs for water containers.  Sinew for bow strings.  Hides for clothing.  Bones for hand tools.  This was a time of substantial resourcefulness, and complete usage.

Since then, the acceptance of offal in American cuisine has ebbed and flowed. 

Innards were popular food fare for the upper class in the middle of the 19th century, served at some of the fanciest restaurants in major cities across the U.S.  One of the main reasons for this practice was the limited food waste, as animals were often slaughtered on site in kitchens, with the yielded product quickly cooked and served.

During World War II, offal from farmed livestock, and various game meats, like deer, rabbit, and squirrel, were never rationed, in contrast to traditional prime muscle cuts, which became critical to create the substantial quantity of sustenance required by the troops overseas.  However, as national incomes and affluence rose after the resolution of this military campaign, the general appetite for intestinal tissues rapidly diminished. 

In-home refrigeration also played a role in the reduced usage of organs.  Folks no longer needed to purchase whole animals to butcher themselves, or consume the entire beast in a timely manner to avoid spoilage.  With limited cold storage space, emphasis was placed on the higher quality protein offerings, even if these cuts cost more.

With the further advent of one-stop-shop grocery stores nationwide during the back half of the 20th century, customers preferred to purchase all their home goods at the same time, once a week, which meant everything needed to be neatly packaged and well preserved.  Frozen food, not a viable storage option for most types of offal, brought on the advent of pre-processed, pre-cooked, proteins.

Organ meats are often cheap to purchase, which reinforces their image as a low quality, marginally edible, portion of a creature, only fit for the poor and desperate in society.  Thus, a downward spiral occurred in the United States between the diminished perception of offal as a culinary element, and the demographics of the folks with diminished incomes who were forced to buy it.  This phenomenon was especially prevalent in African American communities during the civil rights movement, further spurring the racist and classist stigmas surrounding this oppressed segment of society.

There are several challenges inhibiting modern day adoption of offal.  The mouthfeel of innards, which can be quite tough and chewy, is a major turn-off for most diners, especially in this age of highly-cultivated, texturally-consistent, retail foodstuffs.  Plus, organ meat is typically dull in color and uninspiring in flavor, especially when compared to the synthetic dyes and essences infused into curated edibles of late.

Another difficulty is the basic premise regarding eating a portion of the body that executes internal processing activities.  Finally, the visual factor tied to cooking and consuming a component of another mammal easily recognizable in the refrigerated case, like heart or tongue, is very off-putting.  People eat with their eyes.

There’s a feedback loop where the tastes and textures of offal become unfamiliar to the American diner, making it unappetizing.  The longer folks go without eating such organs, the less familiar the experience becomes.

There is one category where United States citizens continue to consume offal in mass quantities, albeit unknowingly.  Via manufactured tube meats.

Bologna, hot dogs, sausages, and other processed protein products allow many organ scraps to be ground and repurposed into more acceptable form factors for the American consumer.  Such savory links incorporate offal in both the casing and inside, with substantial doses of strong spices like coriander, fennel, and paprika masking the mystery meat.  However, foreign eaters are much more open to offal opportunities. 

It’s interesting to note that while animal internals have mostly been shunned by Americans, the country they gained freedom from continues enjoying organ-based dishes in various form to this day.

Black pudding, part of the standard Irish breakfast, leverages pork blood and intestines, to achieve the color and containment respectively.  Mince meat puddings, very common across the United Kingdom, incorporate various chopped tissue, most notably suet, a crumbly fat that encases the innards.  Plus, of course, steak and kidney pie, a staple of British pub cuisine. 

Then there’s haggis, a classic Scottish recipe combining the heart, liver, and lung of sheep, all cooked with vegetables and spices in a natural stomach casing.  Who’s hungry?

While most Americans have at least heard of these dishes, and maybe even tried one or two along their culinary journey, there’s an entire world of offal offerings.  While shunned in the U.S., internal organs are considered prize proteins for other cuisines around the world. 

Each of the highly regional items listed below has come popular in the native culture based on availability and ancestry.

Grilled beef heart kabobs in Peru.  China’s blue chicken feet boiled until chewy.  Sliced and spiced tripe stews across Eastern Europe.  Elevated Melbourne bar fare of brains and bacon.  Braised tongue tacos in various Mexican formats.  Coq au vin with chicken gizzards and hearts.

As noted in the dish, the French folks, known for their culinary competence, have continued to leverage offal in refined recipes since the Renaissance period.  Pate, leveraging fowl liver and stomach components from chicken, duck, and geese, strong protein flavors masked by cream, chives, and cognac, can be found as an appetizer on nearly any traditional Parisian menu.

Some of the most valued ingredients for modern chefs come from the animal internals, if procured of high quality, and handled with attentive care.  Even seemingly inedible portions of the carcass have been cleverly repurposed by innovative cooks, leveraging the local ingredients available to them: pig feet, kangaroo bone marrow, fish eyeballs, monkey brains.  Humans are a creative and hungry lot, especially when survival is on the line.

Granted, Americans aren’t complete slouches with regards to organ consumption.  Considering the national penchant for uniqueness, combined with an abundance of a certain four-legged protein, it’s not surprising this proud nation has claimed a few of the most ambitious proteins as their own.

Tongue, especially of the beef variety, was very popular in expanding United States cuisine, both geographically and metaphorically, around the turn of the 19th century.  Boiled or braised, then sliced or shredded, with bold flavors like onions and oregano, mustard and marsala, peppercorns and porter, the culinary combinations and tempting tastes were limitless.

More recently, testicles, another cattle offering, have gained favor, highlighting the true passion regarding the push to use every portion of a butchered animal.  Considering the sketchy nature of this organ, clever rebranding is often employed, most notably via the moniker Rocky Mountain oysters, in a high elevation region of the country where shellfish options are limited, but bison herds prevalent.

Not surprisingly, there’s an urban legend that consuming testicles improves passion and performance in the sexual realm.  However, the true science doesn’t show testosterone can enter the body through one’s digestive system.  Still, the bigger the better, in classic western frontier style.

Medical research does confirm offal provides many valuable elements beneficial to wellness, including a plethora of minerals, vitamins, and other essential nutrients.  The incredibly dense composition of animal innards, packed with both flavor and energy, make such proteins very applicable for modern keto or paleo diets.

The quantities of specific multivitamins occurring naturally in different types of organs dwarf the levels found in even the heartiest vegetables.  In this modern era, there’s a new way to access the health benefits of offal.  Through curated vitamins and powders, that eliminate the need for individuals to interact with the slimy, smelly, sloppy, and sinewy innards.

Another angle that could rejuvenate the ingestion of intestines is a renewed focus on sustainability by the developed world over the past few decades.  This trend could result in acceptance of, and maybe even appreciation for, the oft-forgotten internal organs of the creatures being consumed.

Details:

-          History of Americans eating organ meats.  [REF]

-          Agricultural and nutritional breakdown on the various types of offal.  [REF]

-          Edible innards commentary from the perspective of an Indian in Mumbai.  [REF] 

-          Very descriptive one-page summary of offal offerings.  [REF]

-          Gastropod, an enlightening podcast focused on offal.  [REF]