It's the weakest pun ever, but when it comes to offal puns...
The story is...our offal export market is booming. Demand for our meat 'co-products' (not by-products any more - offal has had a status-change!) has ramped-up world-wide, especially in Asian countries where hearts, kidneys, tongues and testicles have been on the menu forever. Now, they're getting them from us! It's good for business and maybe good for the environment here, with less 'co-product' going down the chute and into some water body or other but one of the offal-bits had me puzzled (careful punners!) - tendons! Who eats tendons and how on earth do you do it??
Tendons are tough, I've always thought. Didn't Robin Hood make his merry men's bow-strings from them?
How could you chew through those stringy babies?
The Vietnamese, apparently. It's the stuff that makes beef shin so rich..but without the meaty bit...you just need to cook it even longer than you would do shin.
ReplyDeleteAll meat would be a lot cheaper in this country, if we actually ate all the animal rather than trying to cover the entire costs on a few cuts.
Thanks for that James - your last point is well made and we've been hearing a lot lately about the outrageous cost of, for example, lamb, here in NZ.
ReplyDeleteWaste not, want not! I was raised on sheep's brains and tripe!
Chitlins for me.
ReplyDeletewot no giblets?
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your ascendency to the higher realms of the Libs Shane.
Give up the flesh and save the planet - I tend to be with philU on this one.
ReplyDeleteWhat would be the effect of removing grazing animals from the landscape here in NZ I wonder?
ReplyDeletePastoral farmers would cry 'disaster' but that's without considering the alternatives - growing food that doesn't have hooves and the enormous good that could bring.
I was amazed recently at a council meeting by the lack of interest and knowledge amongst those present around organic farming (of stock) and the benefits it brings to soil quality.
So much work to be done there :-)
I was raised on sheep's brains and tripe!
ReplyDeleteWhere did that saying, "you are what you eat", come from?
'course now I've grown up, my diet consists mainly of smartichokes.
ReplyDeletethe chinese also eat tendons, they're braised for ages in a rich dark soy sauce spiced with star anise; chili, palm sugar; coriander; et al. They're supposed to be good for one's skin - all that collagen. The tendons become transparent and give the stew a gelatinous sheen. Long slow cooking is the key, do try it sometime :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Anonymous - there's my Christmas dinner sorted. I'm cooking this year.
ReplyDelete